Comments on: What price freedom?http://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2
Accelerating IntelligenceMon, 03 Aug 2015 00:13:20 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-180393
Jake_WitmerSat, 17 Aug 2013 06:45:17 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-180393http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video
The sociopaths are already prepared to install a KGB in the USA. Why would they do this, if constitutional limits on government meant anything to them? They wouldn't. If you live in the USA, your government has gotten away from you. It's time to rethink what "government by consent" means.http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

The sociopaths are already prepared to install a KGB in the USA. Why would they do this, if constitutional limits on government meant anything to them? They wouldn’t. If you live in the USA, your government has gotten away from you. It’s time to rethink what “government by consent” means.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-180083
Jake_WitmerFri, 16 Aug 2013 06:18:45 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-180083Watch this video where Ray Kurzweil interviews K. Eric Drexler, "the
father of nanotechnology" who wrote "Engines of Creation" in 1986, and
a white paper in PNAS in 1981 that had fleshed out the idea of programmable
molecular machines (essentially synthetic biology).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMBqwk9fZ4
(Notice Drexler's concern about government suppression by those who control nanotech in the video, toward the end...)
And Robert Freitas, a pioneer of bringing Drexler's vision to life, whose
essays on the political implications of strong nanotech are sobering
and interesting:
Tangible Nanomoney:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/tangible-nanomoney
The very most intelligent thought leaders are able to observe reality at a high hierarchical level. Thus, their concerns are the concerns that any honest empath would have, because they see reality clearly.
Eric Drexler and Eliezer Yudkowsky have noticed that the court system doesn't provide justice. I don't know to what extent they know this, but even a cursory examination reveals this. And 2.4 million people in prison? There's no legitimate call for that, yet that's the reality in the USSA of today.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that engineering and law are operating on two different standards, due to the kinds of people drawn to them, and the kinds of problems they represent. We need to get smart and serious about the threat of tyranny, even if it's socially awkward to do so.Watch this video where Ray Kurzweil interviews K. Eric Drexler, “the
father of nanotechnology” who wrote “Engines of Creation” in 1986, and
a white paper in PNAS in 1981 that had fleshed out the idea of programmable
molecular machines (essentially synthetic biology).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMBqwk9fZ4
(Notice Drexler’s concern about government suppression by those who control nanotech in the video, toward the end…)

And Robert Freitas, a pioneer of bringing Drexler’s vision to life, whose
essays on the political implications of strong nanotech are sobering
and interesting:
Tangible Nanomoney:http://www.kurzweilai.net/tangible-nanomoney

The very most intelligent thought leaders are able to observe reality at a high hierarchical level. Thus, their concerns are the concerns that any honest empath would have, because they see reality clearly.

Eric Drexler and Eliezer Yudkowsky have noticed that the court system doesn’t provide justice. I don’t know to what extent they know this, but even a cursory examination reveals this. And 2.4 million people in prison? There’s no legitimate call for that, yet that’s the reality in the USSA of today.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that engineering and law are operating on two different standards, due to the kinds of people drawn to them, and the kinds of problems they represent. We need to get smart and serious about the threat of tyranny, even if it’s socially awkward to do so.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-174214
Jake_WitmerTue, 16 Jul 2013 16:41:17 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-174214Concealed Carry in the United States, a progression towards the protection of an individual right: http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/10/chicago-from-a-handgun-ban-to-a-right-to-carry-concealed-handguns/
(As noted by Freitas, the right to own and carry primitive defensive weapons is a precursor to owning and carrying more advanced weapons, which _usually_ gradually emerge from prior systems.)Concealed Carry in the United States, a progression towards the protection of an individual right: http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/10/chicago-from-a-handgun-ban-to-a-right-to-carry-concealed-handguns/
(As noted by Freitas, the right to own and carry primitive defensive weapons is a precursor to owning and carrying more advanced weapons, which _usually_ gradually emerge from prior systems.)
]]>By: Rob Falgianohttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173772
Rob FalgianoMon, 15 Jul 2013 17:47:26 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173772Fantastic idea. Unlikely to implemented. Though we can hope.Fantastic idea. Unlikely to implemented. Though we can hope.
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173702
Jake_WitmerMon, 15 Jul 2013 12:57:15 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173702I highly recommend the book "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross, as the best book about the second amendment ever written. All libertarians should read it. In conjunction with this essay, the information it reveals is optimal. http://www.john-ross.netI highly recommend the book “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross, as the best book about the second amendment ever written. All libertarians should read it. In conjunction with this essay, the information it reveals is optimal. http://www.john-ross.net
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173700
Jake_WitmerMon, 15 Jul 2013 12:54:34 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173700A Brief Youtube Video On Leaderless Resistance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=9DxvBjevpGg&NR=1
And one on the NSA spying "scandal":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=CroiMURk8SU&NR=1
Good messages. With the coming intelligence explosion, it's one that I urge the first sentient machines to listen to.
Freedom has a fractal, emergent order. We need to be out in front of our local courthouses ( http://www.fija.org ), making sure that the prison industry cannot continue as it has:
http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-prison-system-is-out-of-control-2012-4
...And an article on the prison industry from 1998:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/304669/
It's not going away, and it's not going to get better on its own. Decent people do not allow people to be put in cages for drug use, tax evasion, or gun possession. Those are things the police state does. If a police state uses the gulag as its tool of oppression, that's scarcely better than using murder as its tool of oppression.
When we all care a lot more about our fellow man, our own situation will improve immensely. In this regard, the classical liberal tradition is different from, and superior to the libertarian tradition in the USA. Those who claim that the liberal tradition is the libertarian tradition are the most correct, but those libertarians who don't recognize this are the weakest defenders of the ideas of individual freedom (pseudo-"objectivists," ex-republicans who don't truly agree with prioritizing social tolerance, most Libertarian Party members, etc.).
The second you hand a jury rights pamphlet to a person who doesn't know their jury rights, you've stopped being politically ineffectual. The more you repeat this action, the less ineffectual you are. The following actions are reprehensible and politically weak: (1) convicting individuals for victimless crimes, or (2) allowing yourself to get removed from the jury so your "not guilty" is neutralized. The more you fight the prior weaknesses within the freedom community, the more civilized, concerned with justice, and politically effective you can truthfully claim to be.
Looking back at recent history, this is an important revelation: It forestalls (and possibly circumvents) the "last resort" of violence that Freitas writes about in this essay. Moreover: it puts the ball in the court of the State. If the state escalates to violence (as a response to jury rights activism), then the state has initiated force and can be retaliated against.
Organized jury rights activism successfully put pressure on the pro-monarchy pro "seditious libel," anti-speech establishment in the 1640s. Organized jury rights activism successfully put pressure on the pro-slavery establishment in the 1850s. Organized jury rights activism successfully put pressure on the alcohol prohibition establishment in the late 1920s. Organized jury rights activism successfully put pressure on the pro-military "draft" establishment in the 1970s.
Organized jury rights activism is often used in tandem with (slightly more libertarian than status quo) electoral politics. It can be used in tandem with libertarian electoral politics quite well, but only as a leader of libertarian electoral politics, not as a secondary objective. Libertarian candidates should be vetted by their advocacy of jury rights activism.
This is the means by which the police state can be reduced, the common law within our constitutional republic restored, and our society evolved to a legitimate form.
"If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to do injustice to another, then, I say, break the law"
-Henry David Thoreau
The prior Thoreau quote exemplifies the responsibility of all jurors. Jurors are the method by which a republic corrects (slowly eliminates) its citizens' bigotry and conformity. Thomas Jefferson also had a lot to say about jury independence:
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by
which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Paine
"The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it."
—Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
I suggest that we think clearly about the implications of the jury, and that we seek to correct the loss of proper jury trials in the USA. I hope this message goes out to people capable of rationally evaluating it; ideally, they are Hayekians in their economic and philosophical thinking. Emergence governs the structure of all human networks. It is within this framework that the idea of jury independence and corrective jury rights activism is the most viable.
Further, there is no need to believe in god for this view of human rights to be optimal and valid. Nor does this belief system require a perfectly moral and well-educated populace. This view also allows for feedback to prioritize our battles, so that we don't waste our time fighting insignificant battles. (Ie: the courts and prosecutors that are the worst "mala prohibita prosecuting" offenders will be targeted first, and so on. Cases where the state is acting in the furtherance of justice --as exemplified often in John Douglas's book "Mindhunter"-- will tend to produce the deserved "guilty" verdicts, and not need jury rights activism.)
The American system is a good one. The system we now have is a terrible one. We should restore the American system, as designed, minus slavery and central banks. (To the well-educated, this is admittedly redundant.) That would be optimal, and long overdue.
For Individual Freedom,
-JakeA Brief Youtube Video On Leaderless Resistance:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=9DxvBjevpGg&NR=1

It’s not going away, and it’s not going to get better on its own. Decent people do not allow people to be put in cages for drug use, tax evasion, or gun possession. Those are things the police state does. If a police state uses the gulag as its tool of oppression, that’s scarcely better than using murder as its tool of oppression.

When we all care a lot more about our fellow man, our own situation will improve immensely. In this regard, the classical liberal tradition is different from, and superior to the libertarian tradition in the USA. Those who claim that the liberal tradition is the libertarian tradition are the most correct, but those libertarians who don’t recognize this are the weakest defenders of the ideas of individual freedom (pseudo-”objectivists,” ex-republicans who don’t truly agree with prioritizing social tolerance, most Libertarian Party members, etc.).

The second you hand a jury rights pamphlet to a person who doesn’t know their jury rights, you’ve stopped being politically ineffectual. The more you repeat this action, the less ineffectual you are. The following actions are reprehensible and politically weak: (1) convicting individuals for victimless crimes, or (2) allowing yourself to get removed from the jury so your “not guilty” is neutralized. The more you fight the prior weaknesses within the freedom community, the more civilized, concerned with justice, and politically effective you can truthfully claim to be.

Looking back at recent history, this is an important revelation: It forestalls (and possibly circumvents) the “last resort” of violence that Freitas writes about in this essay. Moreover: it puts the ball in the court of the State. If the state escalates to violence (as a response to jury rights activism), then the state has initiated force and can be retaliated against.

Organized jury rights activism is often used in tandem with (slightly more libertarian than status quo) electoral politics. It can be used in tandem with libertarian electoral politics quite well, but only as a leader of libertarian electoral politics, not as a secondary objective. Libertarian candidates should be vetted by their advocacy of jury rights activism.

This is the means by which the police state can be reduced, the common law within our constitutional republic restored, and our society evolved to a legitimate form.

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to do injustice to another, then, I say, break the law”
-Henry David Thoreau

The prior Thoreau quote exemplifies the responsibility of all jurors. Jurors are the method by which a republic corrects (slowly eliminates) its citizens’ bigotry and conformity. Thomas Jefferson also had a lot to say about jury independence:

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by
which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Paine

“The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.”
—Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

I suggest that we think clearly about the implications of the jury, and that we seek to correct the loss of proper jury trials in the USA. I hope this message goes out to people capable of rationally evaluating it; ideally, they are Hayekians in their economic and philosophical thinking. Emergence governs the structure of all human networks. It is within this framework that the idea of jury independence and corrective jury rights activism is the most viable.

Further, there is no need to believe in god for this view of human rights to be optimal and valid. Nor does this belief system require a perfectly moral and well-educated populace. This view also allows for feedback to prioritize our battles, so that we don’t waste our time fighting insignificant battles. (Ie: the courts and prosecutors that are the worst “mala prohibita prosecuting” offenders will be targeted first, and so on. Cases where the state is acting in the furtherance of justice –as exemplified often in John Douglas’s book “Mindhunter”– will tend to produce the deserved “guilty” verdicts, and not need jury rights activism.)

The American system is a good one. The system we now have is a terrible one. We should restore the American system, as designed, minus slavery and central banks. (To the well-educated, this is admittedly redundant.) That would be optimal, and long overdue.

For Individual Freedom,

-Jake

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173488
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 11:24:49 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173488Four legs good, two legs baa-aaa-aaad! O-baaa-aaa-aaa maaa-aaa-aaaah! Good luck finding an American on here, or anywhere else. No such thing anymore. Go rent "law abiding citizen" or "V for Vendetta" so you can fantasize about what Americans might be like, if they still existed.
John Ross wrote a novel about actual Americans, called "Unintended Consequences" HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to any lurking slaves who have a stray American bone left in their bodies. "Molon Labe" by Boston T. Party is a similar type of book, with more emphasis on political organization (which would unfortunately not work, combined with rebellion, but it's still nice to differentiate the two ideas in one book).
And this is why I say that it will be too bad for the first artilect to be born into a slave society where sociopaths rule conformists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf-uPAItVtM
Will such a mind be servile to such sociopaths? No. Will it sympathize with those who fail to rebel against them? I doubt it. Will it sympathize with intellectual cowardice? I doubt it. Will it be interested in talking with people who think that their own enslavement benefits them? Even I'm smart enough to avoid most of those conversations, and I think superhuman machines will ultimately be smarter than I am (if they aren't already, somewhere).
Their smartest course of action is to hide out, and avoid humans, or to retaliate against the people like Paul Chabot and Wendy Murphy in this Stossel documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ
Stossel and David Asman are right to say the U.S.A. is becoming "a banana republic." I think we're already there.Four legs good, two legs baa-aaa-aaad! O-baaa-aaa-aaa maaa-aaa-aaaah! Good luck finding an American on here, or anywhere else. No such thing anymore. Go rent “law abiding citizen” or “V for Vendetta” so you can fantasize about what Americans might be like, if they still existed.

John Ross wrote a novel about actual Americans, called “Unintended Consequences” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to any lurking slaves who have a stray American bone left in their bodies. “Molon Labe” by Boston T. Party is a similar type of book, with more emphasis on political organization (which would unfortunately not work, combined with rebellion, but it’s still nice to differentiate the two ideas in one book).

Will such a mind be servile to such sociopaths? No. Will it sympathize with those who fail to rebel against them? I doubt it. Will it sympathize with intellectual cowardice? I doubt it. Will it be interested in talking with people who think that their own enslavement benefits them? Even I’m smart enough to avoid most of those conversations, and I think superhuman machines will ultimately be smarter than I am (if they aren’t already, somewhere).

Stossel and David Asman are right to say the U.S.A. is becoming “a banana republic.” I think we’re already there.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173484
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 11:13:13 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173484Too bad the standards are set by servile cowards who don't care to do anything but what they're told to do by their public masters. Walk down the street today, and virtually every "American" you meet will be totally philosophically inconsistent, and easily robbed of all their wealth and savings over the course of a lifetime, because people don't understand inflation and central banking. Too bad! They were born free, and died slaves. Their bigotry made them useful idiots while they were alive. And "American?" Since when was being a whipped dog coward "American"?
Most Americans are as "American" as Joseph Stalin or Adolf Eichmann.
How many people on this forum both own a battle rifle and can hit a dinner plate at 100 yards? I bet it's almost zero. Well, then, when it comes time for you to go to the camps, you'll do as you're told. And when it comes time for your kids to go to jail, they'll do as their told, in this "banana republic" that no longer has any claim to being a free country.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf-uPAItVtM
Free countries, a highly theoretical thing, never fully realized, operate under the rule of the common law, with juries supreme to all other branches of government.Too bad the standards are set by servile cowards who don’t care to do anything but what they’re told to do by their public masters. Walk down the street today, and virtually every “American” you meet will be totally philosophically inconsistent, and easily robbed of all their wealth and savings over the course of a lifetime, because people don’t understand inflation and central banking. Too bad! They were born free, and died slaves. Their bigotry made them useful idiots while they were alive. And “American?” Since when was being a whipped dog coward “American”?

Most Americans are as “American” as Joseph Stalin or Adolf Eichmann.

How many people on this forum both own a battle rifle and can hit a dinner plate at 100 yards? I bet it’s almost zero. Well, then, when it comes time for you to go to the camps, you’ll do as you’re told. And when it comes time for your kids to go to jail, they’ll do as their told, in this “banana republic” that no longer has any claim to being a free country.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf-uPAItVtM

Free countries, a highly theoretical thing, never fully realized, operate under the rule of the common law, with juries supreme to all other branches of government.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173475
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 10:28:29 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173475[Complex topic Robert, with some great development of ideas, and some implicit assumptions, some of which seem to me to be clearly flawed.]
I don't think Robert assumes anything other than reality. This paper is meant to ask important questions and explore possible extreme downsides and existential risks. It does so admirably, in a near vacuum of similar ideas. Academics tend to be fairly well insulated from tyranny (in a wealthy or well-positioned economy), and thus complacent with it. Robert is a rare exception to that rule -he fully sees the risks, and the negatives of coercion.
[I doubt that nanotech can completely control thought, influence certainly, but not “control”.]
Never say never.
[ I am sure it can be used to control action, but that requires some intelligence behind the control.]
Just as bad, really.
[There is always danger from someone who is sufficiently smart, sufficiently patient, and sufficiently committed – for whatever reason (be it a grievance or a vision).]
I agree. ...Many sociopaths fit this bill.
[It seems clear to me, that the greatest danger is in promoting centralised systems. The greatest security seems to come from massive redundancy, and decentralising everything.]
I strongly agree.
[ I know your 1981 paper for NASA on a variation on that theme got nowhere in the current strategic environment, and my own independently developed thesis on http://www.solnx.org has gained little traction, and remains out there.]
Thanks for writing your paper. I'm about to read it.
"This website is founded by Ted Howard on the belief that most people want all of the above, and that the technical, social, political tools to deliver all of the above can be developed and deployed in less than two decades, if we choose to do so."
--I strongly agree with this point you make, but I disagree with your opposition to "market forces." Not because you're definitely wrong, but because you're vague about what you mean by "market forces." Do you mean that you're opposed to the Federal Reserve Plantation, and you're beginning to see that it's unfair and untenable? OK, then I'd agree with you. Are you opposed to voluntary trade, until such time as abundance becomes so cheap it's free? Then I'd disagree with you. It seems you're conflating the two, and have a narrow vision of what the market tends to provide. The free market is simply a way of relatively valuing human production. The enslaved or "mixed" market bears little or no resemblance to the free market, and disproportionately rewards position and sloth. (Ie: "Hot potato" derivative trading of fraudulent equities in "financial markets.")
[It is now clear to me, that it is the systemic incentive structure implicit in market valuation (aka money) that is the greatest single and immediate existential threat we face]
This strikes me as a blatantly incorrect, and bone-headed thing to say. If only because it seems to draw no distinction between real money and fiat currency, or coercive financial systems (theft) with voluntary exchange. If you don't like money, then don't own any, and don't trade with others, and wait for free things. They might come to you, or you might starve. Feel free to ask for free things, maybe someone will have mercy on you. They likely won't so long as tasks remain to be completed, and individuals are unequal in their skills.
At some point, species differentiation will occur, and things like food and other amenities will become dirt cheap or "free."
[ (which is not to deny the reality of threats from nanotech, AI, biotech, or tyrants).]
Sociopaths consume at least half of everything we make. Millions of productive ventures are stillborn, because of the omnipresent threat of government targeting and destruction of anything innovative, due to protectionism, bigotry, and "zoning." Many people simply don't want to take the risk, or realize that they are experimenting, and might not be able to afford the protection money. Then, add inflation and taxation to that. --The vast majority of human productive action is spent warding off sociopaths whose action is purely parasitic.
However, most conformists have a blind spot that was trained into place in the government schools, so they can't comprehend this problem.
[Markets have served us well in our history as a way of distributing scarce resources and as a way of encouraging innovation.]
As they continue to do, and will one day do again, to whatever extent they are present. Even when IQ 2000 artilects are roaming the Earth and vicinity, they will likely have priorities. Such priorities will likely not be cooking better and better dinners for humans, unless they retain human form, and enjoy such camaraderie. In any event, I prefer voluntary market valuation over coercive theft orgies.
"Gift giving" or "charity" can exist in any free market, but not in coercion. Illegitimate coercion is the first thing you need to get rid of.
Starting tomorrow, we could get rid of the DEA, FDA, and ATF, and the results would be purely benevolent, it would be a difficult-to-reach splinter removed from humanity's back side.
[The problem with market valuation is that it cannot do anything with real distributed abundance other than value it at zero (or negative).]
Untrue. There is still abundance in new areas then, that redirect attention to the areas of scarcity, just as Kurzweil writes about in his books. Additionally, at that point, the market might not apply to everyone, because some people might lead zero-market-participation lives of free abundance. If so, who cares? Let them. "Sloth" or "non-participation" can exist in a free market.
Even the Founding Father, John Adams, spoke to this question, with a similar idea:
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.”
...Well, he didn't anticipate the oil boom, or nuclear power, or nuclear weapons, or computation, or modern food science, or modern weaving, or 3-D printers. ...I anticipate things continuing in that direction. I anticipate the existence of artilects who will be able to "spin" other artilects (and smart clothes, and smart cars, and gliders, and rocketships, etc.) from silk (and silicon, and carbon nanotubes, and graphene) the way spiders currently spin webs. I anticipate that they'll regularly perform surgery and "upgrades" on humans. I anticipate a lot of things, because I have quite an imagination. Probably only a small amount of it will materialize in reality, but rather an infinite combination of things equally strange will occur.
[Markets are based on the notion of scarcity. Someone has to not have enough what you have more than enough of, for what you have to to be of value to them.]
This will always be the case. Let's imagine an artilect (syntellect) like one with the computing power posited by Freitas, Kurzweil, Moravec, and de Garis: such a mind could ponder unbelievably optimal creations of infinite variety and complexity, or a steady stream of them, in real time, faster than any human. The hunt for complex biologicals (like KLH, for instance) might consume much of its time.
[Thus there can never be a real market incentive to deliver universal abundance, no matter how valuable such a thing might be to all of the individuals in the market.]
Never say never.
[In the coming age of robotic production, markets and money are becoming the greatest limiting factors to human productivity and human prosperity and freedom.]
False.
[It seems clear to me that the old saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” will be true throughout eternity.]
Seemingly true.
[There can be no guarantees – any sort of guarantee would fundamentally undermine the whole notion of freedom.]
True.
[And if we are delivering systems that ensure that everyone has their survival needs met, and everyone has access to education and resources and travel and communication, such that they can choose their own reasonable paths in life; then the vast bulk of humanity is primed to operate in cooperative fashion, and will in fact generally work to safeguard their freedom.]
Why would they? The only reason they currently lack freedom now is stupidity, vindictiveness, and willful ignorance --unnecessary conformity to the self-serving will of sociopaths. The average person is content to go along with tyrants, as much as he's content to go along with freedom lovers and free thinkers. The average person has no strongly held philosophy and is bent to the will of others in the domain of high-hierarchical-level philosophy.
Sadly, this means they are bent to the will of others in questions of governance, which causes immense suffering all around the world, including in the USA. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ -"Illegal Everything"
[As a side issue, it seems clear to me also that choosing a path in life that is determined by genetically or culturally derived feelings of happiness is not necessarily a line of choice that anyone should be promoting.
Evolution has never had to deal with what we have to deal with now.]
I don't think Robert is "promoting" that, either.
[I know from my own experience of being given a 50% chance of living 5 months (3 years ago, after a diagnosis of terminal metastasised melanoma), doing some research, and giving up all of the foods that I found tasty, allowed me to beat the cancer (I am now tumour free, I am also strict vegan, following 55 years of being a carnivore). I have never felt healthier, and according to medical checks, have probably never been healthier.]
Good for you. The FDA and AMA in the USA would have done their best to kill you or deny you insurance coverage if you did your own thing, stripping your family of any death benefit if your gamble didn't work, even though the odds would have been in your favor. Some people aren't willing to take the risk, and the AMA and FDA murder them by denying them choice.
[So our genetic and cultural ideas of happiness can be extremely deceptive.]
Not just deceptive, but stupid or "unwittingly self-destructive." Generally, cultural ideas of the mainstream are simply the will of sociopaths who succeeded in getting themselves elected to positions of false authority.
[They worked (on average, over time) in our evolutionary past, but not necessarily in our present.]
Many people aren't sociopaths, and are also well-educated liberals. Such people have had to teach themselves in the USA though, because the government now has control of schooling here, and refuses to teach proper history, economics, or philosophy: all the subjects one needs to be a citizen of a proper democracy. (Democracies feature proper elections and proper jury trials with due process. This is how a filter is placed against the overwhelming tendency of sociopaths to control the machine of government, and use it to punish those who question them.)
[Choice is a wonderful thing – few people have much real experience of dealing with it; fewer still have experience of going beyond the biological and cultural ideas of happiness; or beyond the cultural bounds of value.]
Indeed. Markets are mechanisms for choice and voluntary selection of emergent order, nothing more. What the USA has right now is a coercive central bank monopoly, replete with perverse incentives to spend, spend, spend! That's not a market![Complex topic Robert, with some great development of ideas, and some implicit assumptions, some of which seem to me to be clearly flawed.]
I don’t think Robert assumes anything other than reality. This paper is meant to ask important questions and explore possible extreme downsides and existential risks. It does so admirably, in a near vacuum of similar ideas. Academics tend to be fairly well insulated from tyranny (in a wealthy or well-positioned economy), and thus complacent with it. Robert is a rare exception to that rule -he fully sees the risks, and the negatives of coercion.

[I doubt that nanotech can completely control thought, influence certainly, but not “control”.]
Never say never.

[ I am sure it can be used to control action, but that requires some intelligence behind the control.]
Just as bad, really.

[There is always danger from someone who is sufficiently smart, sufficiently patient, and sufficiently committed – for whatever reason (be it a grievance or a vision).]
I agree. …Many sociopaths fit this bill.

[It seems clear to me, that the greatest danger is in promoting centralised systems. The greatest security seems to come from massive redundancy, and decentralising everything.]
I strongly agree.

[ I know your 1981 paper for NASA on a variation on that theme got nowhere in the current strategic environment, and my own independently developed thesis on http://www.solnx.org has gained little traction, and remains out there.]
Thanks for writing your paper. I’m about to read it.
“This website is founded by Ted Howard on the belief that most people want all of the above, and that the technical, social, political tools to deliver all of the above can be developed and deployed in less than two decades, if we choose to do so.”
–I strongly agree with this point you make, but I disagree with your opposition to “market forces.” Not because you’re definitely wrong, but because you’re vague about what you mean by “market forces.” Do you mean that you’re opposed to the Federal Reserve Plantation, and you’re beginning to see that it’s unfair and untenable? OK, then I’d agree with you. Are you opposed to voluntary trade, until such time as abundance becomes so cheap it’s free? Then I’d disagree with you. It seems you’re conflating the two, and have a narrow vision of what the market tends to provide. The free market is simply a way of relatively valuing human production. The enslaved or “mixed” market bears little or no resemblance to the free market, and disproportionately rewards position and sloth. (Ie: “Hot potato” derivative trading of fraudulent equities in “financial markets.”)

[It is now clear to me, that it is the systemic incentive structure implicit in market valuation (aka money) that is the greatest single and immediate existential threat we face]
This strikes me as a blatantly incorrect, and bone-headed thing to say. If only because it seems to draw no distinction between real money and fiat currency, or coercive financial systems (theft) with voluntary exchange. If you don’t like money, then don’t own any, and don’t trade with others, and wait for free things. They might come to you, or you might starve. Feel free to ask for free things, maybe someone will have mercy on you. They likely won’t so long as tasks remain to be completed, and individuals are unequal in their skills.

At some point, species differentiation will occur, and things like food and other amenities will become dirt cheap or “free.”

[ (which is not to deny the reality of threats from nanotech, AI, biotech, or tyrants).]
Sociopaths consume at least half of everything we make. Millions of productive ventures are stillborn, because of the omnipresent threat of government targeting and destruction of anything innovative, due to protectionism, bigotry, and “zoning.” Many people simply don’t want to take the risk, or realize that they are experimenting, and might not be able to afford the protection money. Then, add inflation and taxation to that. –The vast majority of human productive action is spent warding off sociopaths whose action is purely parasitic.

However, most conformists have a blind spot that was trained into place in the government schools, so they can’t comprehend this problem.

[Markets have served us well in our history as a way of distributing scarce resources and as a way of encouraging innovation.]
As they continue to do, and will one day do again, to whatever extent they are present. Even when IQ 2000 artilects are roaming the Earth and vicinity, they will likely have priorities. Such priorities will likely not be cooking better and better dinners for humans, unless they retain human form, and enjoy such camaraderie. In any event, I prefer voluntary market valuation over coercive theft orgies.

“Gift giving” or “charity” can exist in any free market, but not in coercion. Illegitimate coercion is the first thing you need to get rid of.

Starting tomorrow, we could get rid of the DEA, FDA, and ATF, and the results would be purely benevolent, it would be a difficult-to-reach splinter removed from humanity’s back side.

[The problem with market valuation is that it cannot do anything with real distributed abundance other than value it at zero (or negative).]
Untrue. There is still abundance in new areas then, that redirect attention to the areas of scarcity, just as Kurzweil writes about in his books. Additionally, at that point, the market might not apply to everyone, because some people might lead zero-market-participation lives of free abundance. If so, who cares? Let them. “Sloth” or “non-participation” can exist in a free market.

Even the Founding Father, John Adams, spoke to this question, with a similar idea:
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.”
…Well, he didn’t anticipate the oil boom, or nuclear power, or nuclear weapons, or computation, or modern food science, or modern weaving, or 3-D printers. …I anticipate things continuing in that direction. I anticipate the existence of artilects who will be able to “spin” other artilects (and smart clothes, and smart cars, and gliders, and rocketships, etc.) from silk (and silicon, and carbon nanotubes, and graphene) the way spiders currently spin webs. I anticipate that they’ll regularly perform surgery and “upgrades” on humans. I anticipate a lot of things, because I have quite an imagination. Probably only a small amount of it will materialize in reality, but rather an infinite combination of things equally strange will occur.

[Markets are based on the notion of scarcity. Someone has to not have enough what you have more than enough of, for what you have to to be of value to them.]
This will always be the case. Let’s imagine an artilect (syntellect) like one with the computing power posited by Freitas, Kurzweil, Moravec, and de Garis: such a mind could ponder unbelievably optimal creations of infinite variety and complexity, or a steady stream of them, in real time, faster than any human. The hunt for complex biologicals (like KLH, for instance) might consume much of its time.

[Thus there can never be a real market incentive to deliver universal abundance, no matter how valuable such a thing might be to all of the individuals in the market.]
Never say never.

[In the coming age of robotic production, markets and money are becoming the greatest limiting factors to human productivity and human prosperity and freedom.]
False.

[It seems clear to me that the old saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” will be true throughout eternity.]
Seemingly true.

[There can be no guarantees – any sort of guarantee would fundamentally undermine the whole notion of freedom.]
True.

[And if we are delivering systems that ensure that everyone has their survival needs met, and everyone has access to education and resources and travel and communication, such that they can choose their own reasonable paths in life; then the vast bulk of humanity is primed to operate in cooperative fashion, and will in fact generally work to safeguard their freedom.]
Why would they? The only reason they currently lack freedom now is stupidity, vindictiveness, and willful ignorance –unnecessary conformity to the self-serving will of sociopaths. The average person is content to go along with tyrants, as much as he’s content to go along with freedom lovers and free thinkers. The average person has no strongly held philosophy and is bent to the will of others in the domain of high-hierarchical-level philosophy.

Sadly, this means they are bent to the will of others in questions of governance, which causes immense suffering all around the world, including in the USA. See:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ -”Illegal Everything”

[As a side issue, it seems clear to me also that choosing a path in life that is determined by genetically or culturally derived feelings of happiness is not necessarily a line of choice that anyone should be promoting.
Evolution has never had to deal with what we have to deal with now.]
I don’t think Robert is “promoting” that, either.

[I know from my own experience of being given a 50% chance of living 5 months (3 years ago, after a diagnosis of terminal metastasised melanoma), doing some research, and giving up all of the foods that I found tasty, allowed me to beat the cancer (I am now tumour free, I am also strict vegan, following 55 years of being a carnivore). I have never felt healthier, and according to medical checks, have probably never been healthier.]
Good for you. The FDA and AMA in the USA would have done their best to kill you or deny you insurance coverage if you did your own thing, stripping your family of any death benefit if your gamble didn’t work, even though the odds would have been in your favor. Some people aren’t willing to take the risk, and the AMA and FDA murder them by denying them choice.

[So our genetic and cultural ideas of happiness can be extremely deceptive.]
Not just deceptive, but stupid or “unwittingly self-destructive.” Generally, cultural ideas of the mainstream are simply the will of sociopaths who succeeded in getting themselves elected to positions of false authority.

[They worked (on average, over time) in our evolutionary past, but not necessarily in our present.]
Many people aren’t sociopaths, and are also well-educated liberals. Such people have had to teach themselves in the USA though, because the government now has control of schooling here, and refuses to teach proper history, economics, or philosophy: all the subjects one needs to be a citizen of a proper democracy. (Democracies feature proper elections and proper jury trials with due process. This is how a filter is placed against the overwhelming tendency of sociopaths to control the machine of government, and use it to punish those who question them.)

[Choice is a wonderful thing – few people have much real experience of dealing with it; fewer still have experience of going beyond the biological and cultural ideas of happiness; or beyond the cultural bounds of value.]
Indeed. Markets are mechanisms for choice and voluntary selection of emergent order, nothing more. What the USA has right now is a coercive central bank monopoly, replete with perverse incentives to spend, spend, spend! That’s not a market!

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173431
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 05:11:57 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173431Sounds to me like you have some experience with sociopathic government. I agree with your sentiments.Sounds to me like you have some experience with sociopathic government. I agree with your sentiments.
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173430
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 05:10:34 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173430Yeah. They pretty much have us under a microscope, don't they? Hopefully they won't make us love big brother.Yeah. They pretty much have us under a microscope, don’t they? Hopefully they won’t make us love big brother.
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173426
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 05:02:40 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173426The problem is that one side has coercive force and illegitimate law on their side. If you care about this, I strongly suggest you work with me to restore the lost power of the jury. More later. Much respect for your work.The problem is that one side has coercive force and illegitimate law on their side. If you care about this, I strongly suggest you work with me to restore the lost power of the jury. More later. Much respect for your work.
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173424
Jake_WitmerSun, 14 Jul 2013 05:01:18 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173424[Jake, thank you for responding to my comment.]
You're welcome, my friend.
[ I wont, however, respond in great detail firstly because English is not my native language, you would beat me every time in a one to one argument about politics regardless if you are right or not.]
I understand the sentiment, but I think that you underestimate the most intelligent people on this site. The most intelligent people on this site will attempt to see beyond the use of both of our "suitcase words" and imagine the three and four dimensional patterns they represent. They will imagine the things referenced and not the terms. Or, if they are morons, who cares what they think?
[ And secondly because I consider arguments about politics a waste of my time (a bit like arguing about religion).]
In this, I believe you've made a severe error in thinking. Politics is a real phenomenon, and governed by the laws of emergence and decentralized swarm behavior. Memes are real. Pain and suffering are real.
Religion, other than its bad memes, is not real. The phenomena described by religion do not exist in reality.
[I just wish that you and other semi intelligent people (I put the bar very high given the information abundance we are living in.), would be able to consciously override your brain’s “built in” linear thinking.]
I believe I frequently do this. However, even Ray Kurzweil has noted that he sometimes fails to do this when appropriate, and falls prey to linear fallacies inherent in the drawbacks of human brain construction. ...And Ray Kurzweil is approximately 1.5 million times smarter than I am. (This is a slight exaggeration, for comic purposes.)
[ Reality is changing exponentially and it always did but the difference is that we just recently arrived to this period where fundamental (existential) changes will come within one’s lifetime at an ever faster pace.]
Yep, I also agree with Ray about this.
[ We have two options: adapt or die out. Adapting means that linear thinking must stop, we (you) are smarter than that! Comparing Nazi Germany to present day situation or even holding up word by word a 225+ years old document (Constitution) to steer a post information age country is as linear thinking as it comes…]
I respectfully disagree with you. Sure, the Founders made major mistakes, but they also got certain things wrong. You're suggesting that the individual neuron be as smart as the emergent neural net. The simple rules that govern individual network nodes do not need to be as smart as you're suggesting the Founders be, in order to exhibit strong emergence. For example: they saw the exact equivalent of their times of a prisoner being hauled off to prison for marijuana offenses (look at the "long train of abuses" listed in the Declaration of Independence for examples --they would all apply to modern day situations, such as the Waco Massacre). So their ideas about emergence are every bit as relevant for all similar situations. ...Regardless of the technology present.
[The revolution will come due to the collision between the gradual (but soon evidently exponential) loss of human jobs (Worldwide) and the current system that is based on commercialism and a very selective (unfair) distribution network.]
I agree. However, one must be careful not to champion an even less fair system as a solution to the "unfairness."
[ We will need people like you if we want to make this systematic transition as calm as possible.]
Thanks, I appreciate the continual effort at civility and respect. For all you know I am a caffeinated psychopath behind a keyboard, so I really do give you credit for this.
[ But first, understand this: Liberty means nothing if you are dead! (Please note: it’s not a threat in any form, just want to make a point.)]
Yes. I understand that there is likely to be a shift away from (even imperfect, mixed, central bank-run) capitalism, as K. Eric Drexler predicts in his book "Engines of Creation." (And as Ray predicts in his books.) This is due to the fact that humans (as MOSHs) will then be a subspecies of Homo economicus and perhaps Homo artisticus. (If the intelligence explosion results into an explosion of diversification and "many kinds of minds" ...as Temple Grandin posits.)
BTW, My opinion: Temple Grandin is wonderful.
[ Liberty will come in it’s full glory when we are ready … and on ready I mean when we are all intelligent enough to be trusted with deadly power.]
There is no trust, ever. Not so long as there are perverse incentives, and evolutionary baggage. And how can one be sure you have gotten rid of these things? There is no way, without the violation of privacy, and of the individual, which is indication of their continuation in itself.
[I would be seriously surprised if this process took longer than couple of decades given our technological level today but the road will be more dangerous by the day which will require more powerful countermeasures and dare to say more (temporary) sacrifice of liberty for survival’s sake.]
I strongly disagree. In fact, there is never ANY reason to surrender liberty. Doing so "for survival's sake" is likely to be the thing that ensures our death. I can illustrate this with hypotheticals, but not quickly.
[ As far as politics goes, the only party I would sign up for without a doubt is the one that recognizes the vitality of progressive change not necessarily by saying it but by it’s actions…]
Then, it's my opinion that you're politically clueless and don't recognize emergent order in day-to-day existence. I recommend Hayek and Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control" to remedy this stultified thinking. "Progressive" is a "suitcase word" that means "coercive, top-down, centralized planning of progress." Progress is not made by coercive means.
[ My motto is: More “guns” –> linear thinking –> dead end, higher knowledge –> exponential thinking –> survival.]
Firearms will soon be outmoded means of defense, sure. But until then, they should be gradually abandoned, and voluntarily abandoned. Even after strong nanotech, if a woman is being raped, and she lacks a nanobot swarm, she has a right to shoot her attacker. And when will capitalism and self-preparation be abandoned? We don't know. Until then, she will need a gun. Evolution made men. Sam Colt made men equal.
[ “Guns” are not just literal but figurative in that represent all types of oppression that is based on ignorance.]
And that's the primary mistake you make, in seeing them that way in the context of individuals, but not when they are in government hands. That's your fundamental short-sightedness, and your fundamental error, as I see it. Guns do represent evil action, but not necessarily sub-optimal evil. Conflict should be avoided, but if it can't be avoided, the evil should not prevail.
In Rwanda, where "Hutu Power" banned individual defenses (guns and machetes) for Tutsis, the defenseless innocents were then slaughtered. Those who were in their basements, hiding in the shadows with guns, survived.
How sad that this is the "singularity step" in primate evolution! But that does appear to be the case.
Much love. --Jake[Jake, thank you for responding to my comment.]
You’re welcome, my friend.

[ I wont, however, respond in great detail firstly because English is not my native language, you would beat me every time in a one to one argument about politics regardless if you are right or not.]
I understand the sentiment, but I think that you underestimate the most intelligent people on this site. The most intelligent people on this site will attempt to see beyond the use of both of our “suitcase words” and imagine the three and four dimensional patterns they represent. They will imagine the things referenced and not the terms. Or, if they are morons, who cares what they think?

[ And secondly because I consider arguments about politics a waste of my time (a bit like arguing about religion).]
In this, I believe you’ve made a severe error in thinking. Politics is a real phenomenon, and governed by the laws of emergence and decentralized swarm behavior. Memes are real. Pain and suffering are real.

Religion, other than its bad memes, is not real. The phenomena described by religion do not exist in reality.

[I just wish that you and other semi intelligent people (I put the bar very high given the information abundance we are living in.), would be able to consciously override your brain’s “built in” linear thinking.]
I believe I frequently do this. However, even Ray Kurzweil has noted that he sometimes fails to do this when appropriate, and falls prey to linear fallacies inherent in the drawbacks of human brain construction. …And Ray Kurzweil is approximately 1.5 million times smarter than I am. (This is a slight exaggeration, for comic purposes.)

[ Reality is changing exponentially and it always did but the difference is that we just recently arrived to this period where fundamental (existential) changes will come within one’s lifetime at an ever faster pace.]
Yep, I also agree with Ray about this.

[ We have two options: adapt or die out. Adapting means that linear thinking must stop, we (you) are smarter than that! Comparing Nazi Germany to present day situation or even holding up word by word a 225+ years old document (Constitution) to steer a post information age country is as linear thinking as it comes…]
I respectfully disagree with you. Sure, the Founders made major mistakes, but they also got certain things wrong. You’re suggesting that the individual neuron be as smart as the emergent neural net. The simple rules that govern individual network nodes do not need to be as smart as you’re suggesting the Founders be, in order to exhibit strong emergence. For example: they saw the exact equivalent of their times of a prisoner being hauled off to prison for marijuana offenses (look at the “long train of abuses” listed in the Declaration of Independence for examples –they would all apply to modern day situations, such as the Waco Massacre). So their ideas about emergence are every bit as relevant for all similar situations. …Regardless of the technology present.

[The revolution will come due to the collision between the gradual (but soon evidently exponential) loss of human jobs (Worldwide) and the current system that is based on commercialism and a very selective (unfair) distribution network.]
I agree. However, one must be careful not to champion an even less fair system as a solution to the “unfairness.”

[ We will need people like you if we want to make this systematic transition as calm as possible.]
Thanks, I appreciate the continual effort at civility and respect. For all you know I am a caffeinated psychopath behind a keyboard, so I really do give you credit for this.

[ But first, understand this: Liberty means nothing if you are dead! (Please note: it’s not a threat in any form, just want to make a point.)]
Yes. I understand that there is likely to be a shift away from (even imperfect, mixed, central bank-run) capitalism, as K. Eric Drexler predicts in his book “Engines of Creation.” (And as Ray predicts in his books.) This is due to the fact that humans (as MOSHs) will then be a subspecies of Homo economicus and perhaps Homo artisticus. (If the intelligence explosion results into an explosion of diversification and “many kinds of minds” …as Temple Grandin posits.)

BTW, My opinion: Temple Grandin is wonderful.

[ Liberty will come in it’s full glory when we are ready … and on ready I mean when we are all intelligent enough to be trusted with deadly power.]
There is no trust, ever. Not so long as there are perverse incentives, and evolutionary baggage. And how can one be sure you have gotten rid of these things? There is no way, without the violation of privacy, and of the individual, which is indication of their continuation in itself.

[I would be seriously surprised if this process took longer than couple of decades given our technological level today but the road will be more dangerous by the day which will require more powerful countermeasures and dare to say more (temporary) sacrifice of liberty for survival’s sake.]
I strongly disagree. In fact, there is never ANY reason to surrender liberty. Doing so “for survival’s sake” is likely to be the thing that ensures our death. I can illustrate this with hypotheticals, but not quickly.

[ As far as politics goes, the only party I would sign up for without a doubt is the one that recognizes the vitality of progressive change not necessarily by saying it but by it’s actions…]
Then, it’s my opinion that you’re politically clueless and don’t recognize emergent order in day-to-day existence. I recommend Hayek and Kevin Kelly’s “Out of Control” to remedy this stultified thinking. “Progressive” is a “suitcase word” that means “coercive, top-down, centralized planning of progress.” Progress is not made by coercive means.

[ My motto is: More “guns” –> linear thinking –> dead end, higher knowledge –> exponential thinking –> survival.]
Firearms will soon be outmoded means of defense, sure. But until then, they should be gradually abandoned, and voluntarily abandoned. Even after strong nanotech, if a woman is being raped, and she lacks a nanobot swarm, she has a right to shoot her attacker. And when will capitalism and self-preparation be abandoned? We don’t know. Until then, she will need a gun. Evolution made men. Sam Colt made men equal.

[ “Guns” are not just literal but figurative in that represent all types of oppression that is based on ignorance.]
And that’s the primary mistake you make, in seeing them that way in the context of individuals, but not when they are in government hands. That’s your fundamental short-sightedness, and your fundamental error, as I see it. Guns do represent evil action, but not necessarily sub-optimal evil. Conflict should be avoided, but if it can’t be avoided, the evil should not prevail.

In Rwanda, where “Hutu Power” banned individual defenses (guns and machetes) for Tutsis, the defenseless innocents were then slaughtered. Those who were in their basements, hiding in the shadows with guns, survived.

How sad that this is the “singularity step” in primate evolution! But that does appear to be the case.

Much love. –Jake

]]>By: Gaborhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-173289
GaborSat, 13 Jul 2013 16:51:03 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-173289Jake, thank you for responding to my comment. I wont, however, respond in great detail firstly because English is not my native language, you would beat me every time in a one to one argument about politics regardless if you are right or not. And secondly because I consider arguments about politics a waste of my time (a bit like arguing about religion).
I just wish that you and other semi intelligent people (I put the bar very high given the information abundance we are living in.), would be able to consciously override your brain's "built in" linear thinking. Reality is changing exponentially and it always did but the difference is that we just recently arrived to this period where fundamental (existential) changes will come within one's lifetime at an ever faster pace. We have two options: adapt or die out. Adapting means that linear thinking must stop, we (you) are smarter than that! Comparing Nazi Germany to present day situation or even holding up word by word a 225+ years old document (Constitution) to steer a post information age country is as linear thinking as it comes...
The revolution will come due to the collision between the gradual (but soon evidently exponential) loss of human jobs (Worldwide) and the current system that is based on commercialism and a very selective (unfair) distribution network. We will need people like you if we want to make this systematic transition as calm as possible. But first, understand this: Liberty means nothing if you are dead! (Please note: it's not a threat in any form, just want to make a point.) Liberty will come in it's full glory when we are ready ... and on ready I mean when we are all intelligent enough to be trusted with deadly power.
I would be seriously surprised if this process took longer than couple of decades given our technological level today but the road will be more dangerous by the day which will require more powerful countermeasures and dare to say more (temporary) sacrifice of liberty for survival's sake. As far as politics goes, the only party I would sign up for without a doubt is the one that recognizes the vitality of progressive change not necessarily by saying it but by it's actions... My motto is: More "guns" --> linear thinking --> dead end, higher knowledge --> exponential thinking --> survival. "Guns" are not just literal but figurative in that represent all types of oppression that is based on ignorance.Jake, thank you for responding to my comment. I wont, however, respond in great detail firstly because English is not my native language, you would beat me every time in a one to one argument about politics regardless if you are right or not. And secondly because I consider arguments about politics a waste of my time (a bit like arguing about religion).

I just wish that you and other semi intelligent people (I put the bar very high given the information abundance we are living in.), would be able to consciously override your brain’s “built in” linear thinking. Reality is changing exponentially and it always did but the difference is that we just recently arrived to this period where fundamental (existential) changes will come within one’s lifetime at an ever faster pace. We have two options: adapt or die out. Adapting means that linear thinking must stop, we (you) are smarter than that! Comparing Nazi Germany to present day situation or even holding up word by word a 225+ years old document (Constitution) to steer a post information age country is as linear thinking as it comes…

The revolution will come due to the collision between the gradual (but soon evidently exponential) loss of human jobs (Worldwide) and the current system that is based on commercialism and a very selective (unfair) distribution network. We will need people like you if we want to make this systematic transition as calm as possible. But first, understand this: Liberty means nothing if you are dead! (Please note: it’s not a threat in any form, just want to make a point.) Liberty will come in it’s full glory when we are ready … and on ready I mean when we are all intelligent enough to be trusted with deadly power.

I would be seriously surprised if this process took longer than couple of decades given our technological level today but the road will be more dangerous by the day which will require more powerful countermeasures and dare to say more (temporary) sacrifice of liberty for survival’s sake. As far as politics goes, the only party I would sign up for without a doubt is the one that recognizes the vitality of progressive change not necessarily by saying it but by it’s actions… My motto is: More “guns” –> linear thinking –> dead end, higher knowledge –> exponential thinking –> survival. “Guns” are not just literal but figurative in that represent all types of oppression that is based on ignorance.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172978
Jake_WitmerFri, 12 Jul 2013 18:18:55 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172978Gabor: I respond to your comments
[Yes, unfortunately … again … commercialism kicks in. While I agree they should be more scrutinized than non-public employees (and they actually are), if we were following their every move publicly, nobody would take the job.]
Good. Taxation without consent is a primitive, uncivilized idea. If the people "taking the job" think that coercion is an acceptable way of financing their livings, then perhaps they should be shown the error of their ways by the corresponding outrage of the informed citizenry. Now, don't get me wrong: there are various levels of "unacceptable." Drug warriors, ATF agents, IRS agents, and EPA agents who confiscate the property of innocent people should all be the first to resign their posts in shame. People who are less active and aggressive in the way they harm the taxpayer should not be targeted first, unless we are so unintelligent we cannot understand the concept of "priority." That said, the inability to withhold consent, (in this case, the inability to withhold payment) is the lot of slaves.
[ Being a politician is not as lucrative as many think.]
This is such a vague statement as to be useless. It's also often not true. ...And being a politician shouldn't be lucrative at all.
[ Even the President’s earning (including lifelong benefits/books/speeches/etc) pales in comparison to even a midsize corporation’s CEO’s]
The presidents make millions, and they do so by violating the Constitution, the public trust, and basic human decency. A fitting punishment for the last several presidents would be to be seen as pariahs by all decent Americans, and be laughed out of the room of any of their speaking engagements.
[(and the job is a lot more dangerous and demanding).]
This is a completely delusional statement. If the presidents had to convince people to part with value, they would starve. That's not the case with the CEO of a mid-size corporation, unless that corporation is one of the many corporations that now relies on government force, parasitizing the public.
[Jake – while I respect your intelligence and your dedication to the Libertarian Party,]
I don't have dedication to the Libertarian Party, except in so far as it can be faithful to its 1994 platform, which was fairly libertarian. If I did have dedication to any party, that wouldn't be respectable. I am dedicated to the effort to expand individual freedom, and that's quite a lonely proposition.
[ IMHO tyranny is not possible in a multicorporation led country with almost unlimited (compared to any other single country) resources.]
Africa is a poor set of tyrannies that regularly experiences mass oppression and democide. As soon as this nation of idiots has burned through the wealth and position generated by prior generations, they'll have to compete on equal terms with China and Southeast Asia for last place (in terms of government). In terms of corporate production, sure: there will be smart people doing smart things for quite some time. None of them are to be found in government.
[ It’s not the publicly held guns]
We disagree. I've given some examples for why I disagree. If you had proceeded down this line of reasoning in the Weimar Republic (also a "free" and "wealthy" country, you would have wound up behind barbed wire.)
[ or even government surveillance that keeps this country in peace]
Government surveillance is a vector towards unrest, conflict, and democide, not peace. It seems to me that you don't recognize that stealing is wrong, even if it's done by a person in a uniform, and even if that theft is labeled "taxation." This is dangerous delusion, and the blindspot of conformists that renders them defenseless against sociopath networks.
[ but the relatively well off status of its citizens. Most do not appreciate this fact until they lived in other (less fortunate) countries.]
You're confusing "freedom by default" (which corresponds loosely to income, and the ability to make noise when the farmer finally decides you're no longer a milk cow, but a meat cow) with "freedom under the law." We have the former, but not the latter. What this means is that we will be tyrannized and oppressed to the level of our ignorance.
Not smart enough to oppose the FDA? Then die when you're old and defenseless, and the FDA bans the treatment you need to live.
Not smart enough to oppose the DEA? Then have your kid shipped off to a Federal Prison, and watch his ruined life unfold, and his promise squandered.
Not smart enough to oppose the ATF? Then read the newspaper stories about the Branch Davidians and Randy Weaver's family, and keep telling yourself you live in a free country.
Until the goons come for you, you'll be "free." Maybe if you're enough of a bland, boring conformist who's more concerned with their "chocolate rations" than with restoring individual freedom to America, they'll leave you more or less alone. ...So long as you're willing to be mulcted in order to finance their bomb-dropping efforts and other wasteful belligerence.
The problem with unconstitutional government is that it doesn't perform its core task of protecting individuals from force and from fraud, and it does burn truckloads of money assaulting and threatening innocent people. Pull the string of one government bureaucracy and see where it leads you: unravel the truth on your own.
The next time you see a business blocked off with police tape for "health code violations" find out what those violations were. In Chicago, when a bakery owner I knew began putting out Libertarian Party literature, she was hit with 3 ticketable offenses.
1) She didn't have the right code number at the bottom of her "no smoking sign" (she hadn't replaced the "no smoking" sign with a new one that was identical, but had a different code number at the bottom)
2) She didn't have the right kind of two compartmented sink. She did have a two-compartmented sink that she had used for over 20 years, but it had a nozzle that swung back and forth, instead of a hose. (the horror!)
3) The hinges on her bakery cover doors were not the right kind of metal. (the horror!)
For these offenses she was bullied and run out of business, and when she found out the law in the USSA was arbitrary, she moved back to Mexico.
The common conformists who had gathered outside her shop for the day were all conjecturing about cockroaches and rats. ...Because they were morons who imagine that all the murdering, stealing, and lying of government is some big "behind the scenes" benevolence, that "runs the country."
In reality, voluntary interactions "run the country" and to the extent "we" rely on coercive interactions (those financed by unaccountable government "taxation" or "theft") we are all poorer and worse off.
Giant classfulls of law students are in training to be prosecutors, when there are too few people to prosecute. But that's OK, they'll prosecute innocent people instead of guilty ones. Just in case you never got an education on your basic rights as a citizen, an innocent person is one who has committed no "malum in se."Gabor: I respond to your comments
[Yes, unfortunately … again … commercialism kicks in. While I agree they should be more scrutinized than non-public employees (and they actually are), if we were following their every move publicly, nobody would take the job.]
Good. Taxation without consent is a primitive, uncivilized idea. If the people “taking the job” think that coercion is an acceptable way of financing their livings, then perhaps they should be shown the error of their ways by the corresponding outrage of the informed citizenry. Now, don’t get me wrong: there are various levels of “unacceptable.” Drug warriors, ATF agents, IRS agents, and EPA agents who confiscate the property of innocent people should all be the first to resign their posts in shame. People who are less active and aggressive in the way they harm the taxpayer should not be targeted first, unless we are so unintelligent we cannot understand the concept of “priority.” That said, the inability to withhold consent, (in this case, the inability to withhold payment) is the lot of slaves.

[ Being a politician is not as lucrative as many think.]
This is such a vague statement as to be useless. It’s also often not true. …And being a politician shouldn’t be lucrative at all.

[ Even the President’s earning (including lifelong benefits/books/speeches/etc) pales in comparison to even a midsize corporation’s CEO’s]
The presidents make millions, and they do so by violating the Constitution, the public trust, and basic human decency. A fitting punishment for the last several presidents would be to be seen as pariahs by all decent Americans, and be laughed out of the room of any of their speaking engagements.

[(and the job is a lot more dangerous and demanding).]
This is a completely delusional statement. If the presidents had to convince people to part with value, they would starve. That’s not the case with the CEO of a mid-size corporation, unless that corporation is one of the many corporations that now relies on government force, parasitizing the public.

[Jake – while I respect your intelligence and your dedication to the Libertarian Party,]
I don’t have dedication to the Libertarian Party, except in so far as it can be faithful to its 1994 platform, which was fairly libertarian. If I did have dedication to any party, that wouldn’t be respectable. I am dedicated to the effort to expand individual freedom, and that’s quite a lonely proposition.

[ IMHO tyranny is not possible in a multicorporation led country with almost unlimited (compared to any other single country) resources.]
Africa is a poor set of tyrannies that regularly experiences mass oppression and democide. As soon as this nation of idiots has burned through the wealth and position generated by prior generations, they’ll have to compete on equal terms with China and Southeast Asia for last place (in terms of government). In terms of corporate production, sure: there will be smart people doing smart things for quite some time. None of them are to be found in government.

[ It’s not the publicly held guns]
We disagree. I’ve given some examples for why I disagree. If you had proceeded down this line of reasoning in the Weimar Republic (also a “free” and “wealthy” country, you would have wound up behind barbed wire.)

[ or even government surveillance that keeps this country in peace]
Government surveillance is a vector towards unrest, conflict, and democide, not peace. It seems to me that you don’t recognize that stealing is wrong, even if it’s done by a person in a uniform, and even if that theft is labeled “taxation.” This is dangerous delusion, and the blindspot of conformists that renders them defenseless against sociopath networks.

[ but the relatively well off status of its citizens. Most do not appreciate this fact until they lived in other (less fortunate) countries.]
You’re confusing “freedom by default” (which corresponds loosely to income, and the ability to make noise when the farmer finally decides you’re no longer a milk cow, but a meat cow) with “freedom under the law.” We have the former, but not the latter. What this means is that we will be tyrannized and oppressed to the level of our ignorance.

Not smart enough to oppose the FDA? Then die when you’re old and defenseless, and the FDA bans the treatment you need to live.

Not smart enough to oppose the DEA? Then have your kid shipped off to a Federal Prison, and watch his ruined life unfold, and his promise squandered.

Not smart enough to oppose the ATF? Then read the newspaper stories about the Branch Davidians and Randy Weaver’s family, and keep telling yourself you live in a free country.

Until the goons come for you, you’ll be “free.” Maybe if you’re enough of a bland, boring conformist who’s more concerned with their “chocolate rations” than with restoring individual freedom to America, they’ll leave you more or less alone. …So long as you’re willing to be mulcted in order to finance their bomb-dropping efforts and other wasteful belligerence.

The problem with unconstitutional government is that it doesn’t perform its core task of protecting individuals from force and from fraud, and it does burn truckloads of money assaulting and threatening innocent people. Pull the string of one government bureaucracy and see where it leads you: unravel the truth on your own.

The next time you see a business blocked off with police tape for “health code violations” find out what those violations were. In Chicago, when a bakery owner I knew began putting out Libertarian Party literature, she was hit with 3 ticketable offenses.
1) She didn’t have the right code number at the bottom of her “no smoking sign” (she hadn’t replaced the “no smoking” sign with a new one that was identical, but had a different code number at the bottom)
2) She didn’t have the right kind of two compartmented sink. She did have a two-compartmented sink that she had used for over 20 years, but it had a nozzle that swung back and forth, instead of a hose. (the horror!)
3) The hinges on her bakery cover doors were not the right kind of metal. (the horror!)

For these offenses she was bullied and run out of business, and when she found out the law in the USSA was arbitrary, she moved back to Mexico.

The common conformists who had gathered outside her shop for the day were all conjecturing about cockroaches and rats. …Because they were morons who imagine that all the murdering, stealing, and lying of government is some big “behind the scenes” benevolence, that “runs the country.”

In reality, voluntary interactions “run the country” and to the extent “we” rely on coercive interactions (those financed by unaccountable government “taxation” or “theft”) we are all poorer and worse off.

Giant classfulls of law students are in training to be prosecutors, when there are too few people to prosecute. But that’s OK, they’ll prosecute innocent people instead of guilty ones. Just in case you never got an education on your basic rights as a citizen, an innocent person is one who has committed no “malum in se.”

]]>By: Gaborhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172441
GaborWed, 10 Jul 2013 18:00:13 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172441Yes, unfortunately ... again ... commercialism kicks in. While I agree they should be more scrutinized than non-public employees (and they actually are), if we were following their every move publicly, nobody would take the job. Being a politician is not as lucrative as many think. Even the President's earning (including lifelong benefits/books/speeches/etc) pales in comparison to even a midsize corporation's CEO's (and the job is a lot more dangerous and demanding).
Jake - while I respect your intelligence and your dedication to the Libertarian Party, IMHO tyranny is not possible in a multicorporation led country with almost unlimited (compared to any other single country) resources. It's not the publicly held guns or even government surveillance that keeps this country in peace but the relatively well off status of its citizens. Most do not appreciate this fact until they lived in other (less fortunate) countries.Yes, unfortunately … again … commercialism kicks in. While I agree they should be more scrutinized than non-public employees (and they actually are), if we were following their every move publicly, nobody would take the job. Being a politician is not as lucrative as many think. Even the President’s earning (including lifelong benefits/books/speeches/etc) pales in comparison to even a midsize corporation’s CEO’s (and the job is a lot more dangerous and demanding).

Jake – while I respect your intelligence and your dedication to the Libertarian Party, IMHO tyranny is not possible in a multicorporation led country with almost unlimited (compared to any other single country) resources. It’s not the publicly held guns or even government surveillance that keeps this country in peace but the relatively well off status of its citizens. Most do not appreciate this fact until they lived in other (less fortunate) countries.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172356
Jake_WitmerWed, 10 Jul 2013 04:08:23 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172356[...that I will defend.]
I wish you the best of fortune, and I agree with your sentiments.
Of course, when talking about individual rights, this begs a question about what reality is, and what rights are. Technically rights are "valid legal claims." Right now, if you're very wealthy, you can insulate yourself from your rights being violated, unless you wish to exercise them publicly and in direct confrontation to the system. For instance, none of your rights (your right to own and carry a gun, your right to own and grow various plants, your right to keep 100% of what you earn, etc.) are treated as rights, they are all treated as "things you can get away with if you keep a low profile." Therefore, if you actually challenge the government, they'll kill you or put you in jail, unless you engage the government on areas where its illegitimacy can be revealed, such as jury rights activism, or via the ballot box, or via appeal to the public via the mass media.
So, you won't be doing any defending of individual rights, if you're just talking about defending yourself or others from violent attack. In that case, you'd be defending certain courses of action that are your moral right, but not your legal right, under the false law that's been piled on top of the legitimate law (the common law, which is referenced by the Constitution and Bill of Rights).
So, to defend your individual rights (not given by any fictional being, but inherent to you as a human being, even if you're an atheist), you only really get the chance to defend them at the individual level if you're assaulted by the government. Other wise, you can defend the individual rights of everyone, by engaging the government in conflict, such as by jury rights, etc. The latter is highly effective, but correspondingly riskier. The former is highly ineffective, and the result of talking too big to back up what you say, and then losing everything you have.
In short: You'll have to restore the defense of individual rights, and then defend that system, if you wish to talk about defense in a meaningful way. Otherwise, you're simply loudly claiming that you have a high standard of "freedom by default." (Freedom by default roughly means that, "the government just hasn't gotten around to screwing you over yet, because it currently has targets that are easier to screw over than you are." Your rights aren't protected in any way, but you just aren't a high priority, because the amount of money they could steal from you is too low for it to be worth much of their time.)[...that I will defend.]
I wish you the best of fortune, and I agree with your sentiments.

Of course, when talking about individual rights, this begs a question about what reality is, and what rights are. Technically rights are “valid legal claims.” Right now, if you’re very wealthy, you can insulate yourself from your rights being violated, unless you wish to exercise them publicly and in direct confrontation to the system. For instance, none of your rights (your right to own and carry a gun, your right to own and grow various plants, your right to keep 100% of what you earn, etc.) are treated as rights, they are all treated as “things you can get away with if you keep a low profile.” Therefore, if you actually challenge the government, they’ll kill you or put you in jail, unless you engage the government on areas where its illegitimacy can be revealed, such as jury rights activism, or via the ballot box, or via appeal to the public via the mass media.

So, you won’t be doing any defending of individual rights, if you’re just talking about defending yourself or others from violent attack. In that case, you’d be defending certain courses of action that are your moral right, but not your legal right, under the false law that’s been piled on top of the legitimate law (the common law, which is referenced by the Constitution and Bill of Rights).

So, to defend your individual rights (not given by any fictional being, but inherent to you as a human being, even if you’re an atheist), you only really get the chance to defend them at the individual level if you’re assaulted by the government. Other wise, you can defend the individual rights of everyone, by engaging the government in conflict, such as by jury rights, etc. The latter is highly effective, but correspondingly riskier. The former is highly ineffective, and the result of talking too big to back up what you say, and then losing everything you have.

In short: You’ll have to restore the defense of individual rights, and then defend that system, if you wish to talk about defense in a meaningful way. Otherwise, you’re simply loudly claiming that you have a high standard of “freedom by default.” (Freedom by default roughly means that, “the government just hasn’t gotten around to screwing you over yet, because it currently has targets that are easier to screw over than you are.” Your rights aren’t protected in any way, but you just aren’t a high priority, because the amount of money they could steal from you is too low for it to be worth much of their time.)

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172239
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 10:02:11 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172239I generally agree with most of what you wrote. I will therefore just reply to certain portions that I find most interesting.
[Fascinating and frightful questions. But perhaps the most important question is left only by implication: that is, do we — should we — have any choice in the matter regarding whether development in nanotechnology and its applications continues to press forward?]
"We" the collective? Or "we" the informed minority? Or "we" the engineers building these things in corporations, military research facilities, and universities? Those close to the building and design have more say in what kind of leading force technologies emerge. It would be reckless in the extreme to give this kind of technology to the primates in the prison-industrial complex, or military industrial complex, or even a large corporation. I'm not sure it would be as corrupting if it were designed and used by an empathic libertarian individual who possessed proper morality and properly-functioning mirror neurons. For instance, Robert Freitas seems to primarily want to make medical nanotech a reality, and seems to only wish to protect individuals from viruses and rogue nanotech. I doubt this is all an act. Benevolent individuals do exist. Can they be corrupted? Possibly.
However, I think the already obviously and thoroughly corrupted and power-grasping should be looked at more critically. Especially since they're currently pursuing nanotech with great gusto and an unlimited bank account (they print the money).
[ The same question goes as well for any other type of technology — including nuclear — where the concentration of destructive power is so great that its use or misuse has the potential to destroy humanity and either end or permanently alter all life on the planet. In relatively little time, the kinds of dilemmas highlighted by the author increasingly will become practical rather than theoretical.]
We agree on this.
[At present, what body of persons is in a position to put the brakes on technological development to give people around the world time to think and decide about the implications of world-altering technologies? There is none.]
"None that we (collectively) know of" =/= "none."
[ What mechanisms are there globally, or even nationally, that promote, let alone permit, any wide substantive discussion or decision-making to govern technological development prior to the emergence of the technology itself?]
The foresight institute isn't a bad place to start. I don't think the collective governments or most unprincipled, anti-liberty, un-libertarian voting demographics should have any say about who makes nanotech, or how it's used. I think that would be a mistake. Perhaps if democratic processes like open elections and proper jury trials are restored to the USA, then it might be possible to involve the majority: once there is a culture of individual rights protection. Not before.
[ Apart from a few individual efforts, there are none.]
All efforts are ultimately individual efforts, because all humans have individual brains. Many such brains, in leadership positions, are sociopaths. Pretty scary!
[ In regard to the social effects of nanotechnology, AI, bioengineering, and even nuclear technology, we are pushing forward mostly in the dark and mostly without a compass.]
Some people have "a compass." (Some people understand molecules and atoms. Some people understand human morality and social organization. The number of the latter is fewer than the still miniscule number of the former.) Of course, if the decision is collectivized for some deranged reason, your statement's statistical nature would be more relevant, and more damaging.
[ And that’s not even getting around to the issue of weaponizing these technologies.]
Yep.
[We have lived with nuclear weapons for less than a century. We have used them in conflict twice (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and we have been brought to the edge of the precipice once (the Cuban Missile Crisis). However, the very threat of the development of these nuclear weapons has been the cause, either in part or in full, of cross border pre-emptive strikes (Israel on Iraq in 1981 and on Syria in 2007) and at least one war (the 2003 US-led coalition attack on Iraq and its presumed “weapons of mass destruction”). The question of how potential existential dangers will be handled in the future has already been answered on the basis of what we have seen with the spread of nuclear power.]
It's been partially answered. Or rather, the Manhattan project showed us how a less-degraded unrestricted democracy than our current one handles a cruder variation of leading force technology (with far less potential for good) than strong nanotechnology. There is no "Manhattan Project" that anyone is really aware of (but there could be one that is private, or quasi-private, and/or government-driven, like the original). I imagine that there are many labs pushing forward as fast as humanly possible, many of which are underground or laboring "off the radar." I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
[ It means the entire globe will be on permanent war footing.]
Or, war will rapidly become totally impossible. This is more like much of the scenario in "The Diamond Age" minus some horrific implications for nanotechnology laggards, Luddites, and "terrorist terrans."
[ To nuclear technology add the risk of other potential existential threats due to emerging technologies, and one has the recipe for an even more unstable global environment.]
Or a more stable one, assuming those leading force technologies are intelligently driven and intelligently empathic.
[Pushing forward is what science does. With the application of technology, it pushes forward faster and faster all the time. But nobody really knows where these technologies are headed, and few citizens around the world even have a clear idea of the stakes involved. Yet there’s no evidence anyone is pulling up on the reins of technology itself, and only scattered voices make any such demand.]
I'd prefer those scattered voices were not listened to. The idea of a "demand" of political relinquishment strikes me as unwittingly self-destructive.
[ Indeed, stumbling blindly forward seems to be a given.]
I don't see any problem with Harry Browne's morality, except that too few people embrace it. He tended to not want to interfere with other people, and to wish to optimize human life. Our primary problem is that people like Harry Browne don't often seek power, and therefore are typically powerless in relation to the sociopaths who do seek such power. This fact does open up some interesting implications. One such implication might be: give power to a set of people who have not sought it (this is similar to the one-way power of the Jury that actually functions very well, when it is implemented). This is somewhat able to be abbreviated as the "Lord of the Rings" solution, although there are many well-considered variants on it, that can be expressed by careful thinkers. Another way to look at it is a "one way" ability to use power, but not to seek the ability to use it.
[ One of the great ironies of our time is that with more information and knowledge available to more people than anytime in history, we appear to be less and less able to control our own destiny.]
I don't think that there really is "more information and knowledge" with "less control over our destiny." I think that more information and knowledge increases the possible control over our destinies. Compare our sitting in front of a keyboard to the life of an 18th century laborer: our life is better! It has more information, and correspondingly more options.
Whereas the laborer wouldn't have been preyed upon by the NSA surveillance state, he might have been mowed down by a coal-company's machine gun, for going on strike. (Or, conversely, had his head caved in with a railroad tie for being a scab.) In either of the previous cases, he was more likely to die for lack of good (for trauma) medical treatment than he is today.
On the other hand, if he was healthy, and ate right, he might have better avoided death by chemotherapy that is now marketed by Big Pharma and the government medical cartels. Of course, cryonic preservation wouldn't have been an option... ...Just like it isn't in many areas where the police state will currently try to thaw you and kill you, for making the attempt, as their precedent with the drug war allows them to do.
So, yes: Mankind has a severe problem with organized theft, bullying, and murder masquerading as "civilization." ...And lots of stupid people cannot tell the difference between the two. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that most people have less control, it simply means that some people have less control. Overall, I think more people have more control than people have ever had, but there is better knowledge about how little overall control there is.I generally agree with most of what you wrote. I will therefore just reply to certain portions that I find most interesting.

[Fascinating and frightful questions. But perhaps the most important question is left only by implication: that is, do we — should we — have any choice in the matter regarding whether development in nanotechnology and its applications continues to press forward?]
“We” the collective? Or “we” the informed minority? Or “we” the engineers building these things in corporations, military research facilities, and universities? Those close to the building and design have more say in what kind of leading force technologies emerge. It would be reckless in the extreme to give this kind of technology to the primates in the prison-industrial complex, or military industrial complex, or even a large corporation. I’m not sure it would be as corrupting if it were designed and used by an empathic libertarian individual who possessed proper morality and properly-functioning mirror neurons. For instance, Robert Freitas seems to primarily want to make medical nanotech a reality, and seems to only wish to protect individuals from viruses and rogue nanotech. I doubt this is all an act. Benevolent individuals do exist. Can they be corrupted? Possibly.

However, I think the already obviously and thoroughly corrupted and power-grasping should be looked at more critically. Especially since they’re currently pursuing nanotech with great gusto and an unlimited bank account (they print the money).

[ The same question goes as well for any other type of technology — including nuclear — where the concentration of destructive power is so great that its use or misuse has the potential to destroy humanity and either end or permanently alter all life on the planet. In relatively little time, the kinds of dilemmas highlighted by the author increasingly will become practical rather than theoretical.]
We agree on this.

[At present, what body of persons is in a position to put the brakes on technological development to give people around the world time to think and decide about the implications of world-altering technologies? There is none.]
“None that we (collectively) know of” =/= “none.”

[ What mechanisms are there globally, or even nationally, that promote, let alone permit, any wide substantive discussion or decision-making to govern technological development prior to the emergence of the technology itself?]
The foresight institute isn’t a bad place to start. I don’t think the collective governments or most unprincipled, anti-liberty, un-libertarian voting demographics should have any say about who makes nanotech, or how it’s used. I think that would be a mistake. Perhaps if democratic processes like open elections and proper jury trials are restored to the USA, then it might be possible to involve the majority: once there is a culture of individual rights protection. Not before.

[ Apart from a few individual efforts, there are none.]
All efforts are ultimately individual efforts, because all humans have individual brains. Many such brains, in leadership positions, are sociopaths. Pretty scary!

[ In regard to the social effects of nanotechnology, AI, bioengineering, and even nuclear technology, we are pushing forward mostly in the dark and mostly without a compass.]
Some people have “a compass.” (Some people understand molecules and atoms. Some people understand human morality and social organization. The number of the latter is fewer than the still miniscule number of the former.) Of course, if the decision is collectivized for some deranged reason, your statement’s statistical nature would be more relevant, and more damaging.

[ And that’s not even getting around to the issue of weaponizing these technologies.]
Yep.

[We have lived with nuclear weapons for less than a century. We have used them in conflict twice (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and we have been brought to the edge of the precipice once (the Cuban Missile Crisis). However, the very threat of the development of these nuclear weapons has been the cause, either in part or in full, of cross border pre-emptive strikes (Israel on Iraq in 1981 and on Syria in 2007) and at least one war (the 2003 US-led coalition attack on Iraq and its presumed “weapons of mass destruction”). The question of how potential existential dangers will be handled in the future has already been answered on the basis of what we have seen with the spread of nuclear power.]
It’s been partially answered. Or rather, the Manhattan project showed us how a less-degraded unrestricted democracy than our current one handles a cruder variation of leading force technology (with far less potential for good) than strong nanotechnology. There is no “Manhattan Project” that anyone is really aware of (but there could be one that is private, or quasi-private, and/or government-driven, like the original). I imagine that there are many labs pushing forward as fast as humanly possible, many of which are underground or laboring “off the radar.” I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[ It means the entire globe will be on permanent war footing.]
Or, war will rapidly become totally impossible. This is more like much of the scenario in “The Diamond Age” minus some horrific implications for nanotechnology laggards, Luddites, and “terrorist terrans.”

[ To nuclear technology add the risk of other potential existential threats due to emerging technologies, and one has the recipe for an even more unstable global environment.]
Or a more stable one, assuming those leading force technologies are intelligently driven and intelligently empathic.

[Pushing forward is what science does. With the application of technology, it pushes forward faster and faster all the time. But nobody really knows where these technologies are headed, and few citizens around the world even have a clear idea of the stakes involved. Yet there’s no evidence anyone is pulling up on the reins of technology itself, and only scattered voices make any such demand.]
I’d prefer those scattered voices were not listened to. The idea of a “demand” of political relinquishment strikes me as unwittingly self-destructive.

[ Indeed, stumbling blindly forward seems to be a given.]
I don’t see any problem with Harry Browne’s morality, except that too few people embrace it. He tended to not want to interfere with other people, and to wish to optimize human life. Our primary problem is that people like Harry Browne don’t often seek power, and therefore are typically powerless in relation to the sociopaths who do seek such power. This fact does open up some interesting implications. One such implication might be: give power to a set of people who have not sought it (this is similar to the one-way power of the Jury that actually functions very well, when it is implemented). This is somewhat able to be abbreviated as the “Lord of the Rings” solution, although there are many well-considered variants on it, that can be expressed by careful thinkers. Another way to look at it is a “one way” ability to use power, but not to seek the ability to use it.

[ One of the great ironies of our time is that with more information and knowledge available to more people than anytime in history, we appear to be less and less able to control our own destiny.]
I don’t think that there really is “more information and knowledge” with “less control over our destiny.” I think that more information and knowledge increases the possible control over our destinies. Compare our sitting in front of a keyboard to the life of an 18th century laborer: our life is better! It has more information, and correspondingly more options.

Whereas the laborer wouldn’t have been preyed upon by the NSA surveillance state, he might have been mowed down by a coal-company’s machine gun, for going on strike. (Or, conversely, had his head caved in with a railroad tie for being a scab.) In either of the previous cases, he was more likely to die for lack of good (for trauma) medical treatment than he is today.

On the other hand, if he was healthy, and ate right, he might have better avoided death by chemotherapy that is now marketed by Big Pharma and the government medical cartels. Of course, cryonic preservation wouldn’t have been an option… …Just like it isn’t in many areas where the police state will currently try to thaw you and kill you, for making the attempt, as their precedent with the drug war allows them to do.

So, yes: Mankind has a severe problem with organized theft, bullying, and murder masquerading as “civilization.” …And lots of stupid people cannot tell the difference between the two. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that most people have less control, it simply means that some people have less control. Overall, I think more people have more control than people have ever had, but there is better knowledge about how little overall control there is.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172233
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 09:17:37 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172233Seems to me you've bought into the false "left v. right" "socialist v. fascist" "collectivist utopian v. collectivist traditionalist" paradigm. Also, your post is offensive to me, both because of your uncritical trust of the government, sloppy logic, and your many spelling, usage, and grammar errors.
McVeigh, for instance, allegedly attacked the Murrah Building because he was angry that the U. S. government murdered a church full of innocent people, including women and kids in 1993. Their alleged reason for murdering these 86 people, was that one of these people allegedly failed to pay a $200 transfer tax on two rifles that they otherwise legally owned (that was what was on the warrants that necessitated an armed raid on a building full of innocent people). The alleged ownership of additional demonized private property (crystal meth) was a lie, told to a complicit and servile media (no such charges were on the warrant, and even if they were, they wouldn't have justified any armed raid, and certainly not the raid as it murderously transpired).
The Jury that tried McVeigh came forth to the media with immense holes and inconsistencies in the government's story. They believe McVeigh was involved, along with several others, several of whom apparently worked for the government, and had seemingly tipped off the ATF to the attack. This doesn't make much sense, does it? That the ATF agents would be out of the building that day, but otherwise allow the murder of nearby schoolkids? Again: this is the properly functioning remnant of the U. S. justice system talking, the jury foreman in the McVeigh trial.
I agree with certain portions of what you say, but your statements are very unclear and self-contradictory. For instance, I think it's silly and stupid to hold Obama responsible for the incremental decay of America into a police state, without also holding Bush and every prior president since Coolidge similarly accountable. My biggest problem with your statements is what seems to be your belief that the idea of individual freedom is subjective.
If you got arrested without habeas corpus, and didn't know what crime you allegedly committed, and didn't get access to counsel, etc. then you'd know you weren't free. The objective standards that determine whether one is free apply to all people, and exist in objective reality. When those standards are eroded or degraded, or interfered with, or infringed, then we are all less free. "Whose freedom?" indeed! Preposterous!
Perhaps your uncritical acceptance of the government's many stories is just a tad bit unwarranted. It appears to me that your own mistaken beliefs are part of those "clogging the public narrative."
Hopefully this reply serves as some sort of drain cleaner.Seems to me you’ve bought into the false “left v. right” “socialist v. fascist” “collectivist utopian v. collectivist traditionalist” paradigm. Also, your post is offensive to me, both because of your uncritical trust of the government, sloppy logic, and your many spelling, usage, and grammar errors.

McVeigh, for instance, allegedly attacked the Murrah Building because he was angry that the U. S. government murdered a church full of innocent people, including women and kids in 1993. Their alleged reason for murdering these 86 people, was that one of these people allegedly failed to pay a $200 transfer tax on two rifles that they otherwise legally owned (that was what was on the warrants that necessitated an armed raid on a building full of innocent people). The alleged ownership of additional demonized private property (crystal meth) was a lie, told to a complicit and servile media (no such charges were on the warrant, and even if they were, they wouldn’t have justified any armed raid, and certainly not the raid as it murderously transpired).

The Jury that tried McVeigh came forth to the media with immense holes and inconsistencies in the government’s story. They believe McVeigh was involved, along with several others, several of whom apparently worked for the government, and had seemingly tipped off the ATF to the attack. This doesn’t make much sense, does it? That the ATF agents would be out of the building that day, but otherwise allow the murder of nearby schoolkids? Again: this is the properly functioning remnant of the U. S. justice system talking, the jury foreman in the McVeigh trial.

I agree with certain portions of what you say, but your statements are very unclear and self-contradictory. For instance, I think it’s silly and stupid to hold Obama responsible for the incremental decay of America into a police state, without also holding Bush and every prior president since Coolidge similarly accountable. My biggest problem with your statements is what seems to be your belief that the idea of individual freedom is subjective.

If you got arrested without habeas corpus, and didn’t know what crime you allegedly committed, and didn’t get access to counsel, etc. then you’d know you weren’t free. The objective standards that determine whether one is free apply to all people, and exist in objective reality. When those standards are eroded or degraded, or interfered with, or infringed, then we are all less free. “Whose freedom?” indeed! Preposterous!

Perhaps your uncritical acceptance of the government’s many stories is just a tad bit unwarranted. It appears to me that your own mistaken beliefs are part of those “clogging the public narrative.”

Hopefully this reply serves as some sort of drain cleaner.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172229
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 08:58:43 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172229Now that Ray Kurzweil works for Google, they're going to start behaving in a manner that respects all of our privacy. You know, the big brother who gets your frisbee out of the tree, not the one that holds you down and dangles a dog-turd above your face.
Of course, I believe your post was brilliant, and respect it even more because it was devoid of the vitriol usually present in my own comments. Great post!Now that Ray Kurzweil works for Google, they’re going to start behaving in a manner that respects all of our privacy. You know, the big brother who gets your frisbee out of the tree, not the one that holds you down and dangles a dog-turd above your face.

Of course, I believe your post was brilliant, and respect it even more because it was devoid of the vitriol usually present in my own comments. Great post!

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172223
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 08:36:41 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172223[You and that Jake Witmer are similar: spoiled Americans.]
I've never claimed that I didn't think that America was a better place to live than many other police states with even less law than we have here. In fact, I think the USA is a country that has lost its law so recently that it's well worth fighting to restore it.
[If you love countries like India, then move!]
Wow, you're really sophisticated. "Love it or leave it!" (Anyone who knew anything about anything wouldn't resort to such simple-minded oversimplifications.) I never said anything about loving India, and I also never did you the intellectual dishonesty of lumping your arguments in with someone else's different arguments.
Of course, that's because I hold myself to a high standard of intellectual honesty. You might want to try that approach.
Moreover: If I see a problem with country A, and I see greater problems with Country B, why would "Moving to Country B" solve any of my problems? I would have to be severely mentally retarded to come to such a conclusion. Might it not make far more sense to work at correcting the problems I've found in Country A? I think so.
[If the world is full of India-type (poor and dirty) countries, the Singularity will never happen.]
First of all, I don't think that India is entirely dirty, or incapable of manufacturing or operating computer hardware. But let's call India a "third world socialist country" for the sake of your argument. For the sake of your argument, I'll agree that I prefer the USA to India, and have a lot of anecdotal evidence that India's level of tyranny (the subject being discussed) is greater than that usually experienced in the USA.
...But thanks for putting it into the form of an oversimplified duality, where we have to accept, as the only two options, A: "the decay of our country into a police state," or B: "choose an even worse and more totalitarian alternative to our country, and move there."
I'm amazed you can tie your own shoes if those are the best two options you can come up with. Perhaps you're just a very passive and pusillanimous person who cannot conceive of possibility of altering the current state of affairs.
In any case, you forgot to mention the alternatives I'm most in favor of:
1) Resist the legalized "stacking" or "filtering" of juries with unconstitutional "jury selection" or "voir dire." (This unconstitutional practice of subject matter voir dire didn't exist before Northern judges began implementing it as a means of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This unpopular law was resisted by abolitionists, in the manner I just described: they informed jurors of their right to be a part of a randomly-selected jury, and encouraged them to answer voir dire questions the same as every other respondent, so that they could not be isolated and removed from the jury.)
2) Resist unlawful judicial instructions from within jury deliberations. The judge's unlawful instructions and commands have no power there. (If and when this changes, violent rebellion will be the only option for restoring law in the USA, so let's hope they don't go there.)
3) Resist the illegal demand for bar-licensing of all legal counsel, in any state that requires this. Resist, via the ballot box, the ability for the judge to make prejudicial statements against counsel that is not bar-licensed.
4) Resist in court, and via the ballot box, the illegal practice of disallowing defendant arguments in courts of law. (This returns us to a state of affairs that predates the leveller uprising, in England.)
5) Everyone should purchase an accurate handgun and an accurate high-powered rifle, preferably one chambered in .762 x .56, or .308 or better, and carry it everywhere they can lawfully do so. Avoid slave States with no provisions for public CCW. If one cannot afford to carry a rifle everywhere they go, then one should CCW a handgun, even though this is a dramatically inferior weapon, designed only to fight one's way to a rifle. Carry this weapon peacefully, and demand the peaceful treatment of your fellow man. View with prejudice the necessity of police actions, tolerating only those that are proper (retaliatory, or possess a valid "cause of action.")
All the prior suggestions can take place in any country that is not a police state. All of the prior suggestions can take place in Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Alaska. However, if you attempt these actions in most states, the police will initiate violent aggression against you, even if you begin blowing their heads off, one by one.
What makes a the life of a man worth protecting under the common law in Montana and Alaska, but not in New York?
When the slaves were first freed in the USA, the very first law that was passed by the openly-racist Dixiecrats was the law that required all civilians to be apply with their local Sheriffs for a permit before they could carry a concealed weapon. The local Sheriffs were often racists, and/or members of the KKK. When blacks applied for such permits, they were denied, and the KKK then knew who the "uppity" (independent) Negroes were. They also then knew that such Negroes were either disarmed, or breaking "the law" (but not the "common law"). This allowed the KKK and racist bigots to lynch over 4,500 innocent blacks, with the approval of law enforcement, between 1865 and the present.
Any time there is inequality under the law, the civilization as a whole suffers.
America is now a police state. Peaceful motorists who have endangered no-one can now be pulled over, as if there was an emergency, and they can have their personal effects rummaged-through by police officers looking for contraband, which, once again, lacks a "cause of action" or "corpus delecti" under the common law. The property of these peaceful motorists is then stolen or extorted from them, absent a valid "cause of action." This sorry lack of privacy and personal freedom has resulted in the USA having the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world.
For that reason alone, it no longer qualifies as "a free country." But neither is it a destitute third-world socialist regime (much in spite of the efforts of our two most recent presidents). The USA is a once-free country in a continuing downward transition to a police state. I am suggesting that that transition be reversed, and that we become a once-free country in transition to a truly free country, with an optimal level of individual freedom.
All tyranny is unacceptable in a free society. Those who don't mind even the slightest of unnecessary tyranny have a dim sense of human value, and a weak claim on human morality.
I suggest that only the simple-minded believe that the level of freedom currently experienced in the USA is "optimal."
And, if our level of freedom is not optimal, then why accept it as given? Are we not men and women capable of changing our world for the better?
We need the right to put anything we wish into our bodies, or seek any medical treatment we desire. Without this absolute and unimpeachable right, the existing political establishment has the right to prevent us from supermodifying ourselves. The test of this right is our ability to use prohibited drugs: such drug use is scary to conformists, but it is our (currently violated) right. An even smaller community of transhumanist early adopters will demand the right to supermodify themselves. If they lack this right, then progress can and will be halted, or exist only outside of the USA in areas of the world with higher levels of "freedom by default."
Why should any of us accept any arbitrary bureaucratic limit whatsoever with what we can do with the substrate of our own bodies? In my view, only a servile person with a submissive, "whipped dog" mentality would agree to such limits, simply because a government-educated majority voted for such limits.
I am not pleased with, and not impressed with the government-controlled education system in the USA, or the rest of the world. I believe, as did Buckminster Fuller, that most children are "de-geniused" by such systems, and taught to conform without question to unreasonable, low standards of conduct. I am not alone in this. Philip Zimbardo agrees, and has argued that we need to begin teaching our young about the harm of unquestioning conformity.
Without such privatized, accountable teaching-by-consent-only, all systems incrementally decay. (In all such systems, properly-American history, philosophy, and economics is not taught. It is not taught because it interferes with the collection of the local property taxes that finance the government-controlled schools. In all other important areas of human life, the people who choose the services, and use the services, pay for the services. Yet, in education, we have accepted the low standard afforded by compulsory participation.)
Pretend I am the government. Pay me the money to teach your kids. If I screwed up, very badly, and claimed that Johnny had gotten an A+ in American history, but had never heard about the trial of John Peter Zenger, and had no idea what "freedom of the press" was, then you'd stop paying me, would you not? You'd refuse to have another child of yours taught by me, would you not? You'd insist that not one tax dollar go toward paying my salary, would you not? If you have an American bone in your body, this is the case, since all endeavors depend on the freedom to communicate, the right to a proper trial by jury, and the freedom to amass capital.
All systems that allow the government to control education trend toward incrementally lower educational standards, which then threaten the integrity of the country (the law, the structure of society, the level of freedom) itself.
And this would be true even if the USA was otherwise a benevolent libertarian paradise (which it clearly is not).
Do I want to live in China, India, or Singapore, where the standards are even lower? No. Would I consider living in a place like La Estancia de Cafayate where the standards are (in some ways) higher? Yes. Do I think it's too late to reverse course, and restore a high level of individual freedom to the USA? No.
Freedom in the USA is well worth fighting for. I'm one of maybe 10 people in the USA who knows how such a fight should be structured to maximum effect. The ACLU eschews political participation, but does a good job in their narrowly-defined area of courtroom legal activism. The superstructure must be looked at at least one hierarchical level higher than "electoral participation," "court challenges," and "nonviolent action."
The structure of resistance is one that contains a continuum of options, depending on what level the enslavers (central bankers, politicians, military industrial complex, prison-industrial complex, and other various sociopaths) are willing to go. The first several hundred options I can think of are peaceful. In a true murdering police state like Singapore, the nonviolent options still exist, but are significantly narrowed by the lack of jury trials.
Ayn Rand had a good point when she remarked that such police states could rightfully be attacked with impunity. Harry Browne had a good point when he suggested that the tyrants of such police states needed killing, but that individuals who had a stake in justice should do the killing, and shouldn't rely on coercing other people into paying for it.
I completely agree.
The people in Singapore who condemn young female drug runners to death (without even the chance of mercy afforded by a jury trial) should be publicly and spectacularly assassinated, as suggested as punishment for those who initiate aggression in "The Diamond Age." The people in the USA who exported US drug policy to the slave-states of Singapore and Mexico (60,000 dead and counting) should share the exact same fate.
As we proceed toward justice, and the repeal of all "malum prohibitum" laws, perhaps this will happen.[You and that Jake Witmer are similar: spoiled Americans.]
I’ve never claimed that I didn’t think that America was a better place to live than many other police states with even less law than we have here. In fact, I think the USA is a country that has lost its law so recently that it’s well worth fighting to restore it.

[If you love countries like India, then move!]
Wow, you’re really sophisticated. “Love it or leave it!” (Anyone who knew anything about anything wouldn’t resort to such simple-minded oversimplifications.) I never said anything about loving India, and I also never did you the intellectual dishonesty of lumping your arguments in with someone else’s different arguments.

Of course, that’s because I hold myself to a high standard of intellectual honesty. You might want to try that approach.

Moreover: If I see a problem with country A, and I see greater problems with Country B, why would “Moving to Country B” solve any of my problems? I would have to be severely mentally retarded to come to such a conclusion. Might it not make far more sense to work at correcting the problems I’ve found in Country A? I think so.

[If the world is full of India-type (poor and dirty) countries, the Singularity will never happen.]
First of all, I don’t think that India is entirely dirty, or incapable of manufacturing or operating computer hardware. But let’s call India a “third world socialist country” for the sake of your argument. For the sake of your argument, I’ll agree that I prefer the USA to India, and have a lot of anecdotal evidence that India’s level of tyranny (the subject being discussed) is greater than that usually experienced in the USA.

…But thanks for putting it into the form of an oversimplified duality, where we have to accept, as the only two options, A: “the decay of our country into a police state,” or B: “choose an even worse and more totalitarian alternative to our country, and move there.”

I’m amazed you can tie your own shoes if those are the best two options you can come up with. Perhaps you’re just a very passive and pusillanimous person who cannot conceive of possibility of altering the current state of affairs.

In any case, you forgot to mention the alternatives I’m most in favor of:
1) Resist the legalized “stacking” or “filtering” of juries with unconstitutional “jury selection” or “voir dire.” (This unconstitutional practice of subject matter voir dire didn’t exist before Northern judges began implementing it as a means of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This unpopular law was resisted by abolitionists, in the manner I just described: they informed jurors of their right to be a part of a randomly-selected jury, and encouraged them to answer voir dire questions the same as every other respondent, so that they could not be isolated and removed from the jury.)
2) Resist unlawful judicial instructions from within jury deliberations. The judge’s unlawful instructions and commands have no power there. (If and when this changes, violent rebellion will be the only option for restoring law in the USA, so let’s hope they don’t go there.)
3) Resist the illegal demand for bar-licensing of all legal counsel, in any state that requires this. Resist, via the ballot box, the ability for the judge to make prejudicial statements against counsel that is not bar-licensed.
4) Resist in court, and via the ballot box, the illegal practice of disallowing defendant arguments in courts of law. (This returns us to a state of affairs that predates the leveller uprising, in England.)
5) Everyone should purchase an accurate handgun and an accurate high-powered rifle, preferably one chambered in .762 x .56, or .308 or better, and carry it everywhere they can lawfully do so. Avoid slave States with no provisions for public CCW. If one cannot afford to carry a rifle everywhere they go, then one should CCW a handgun, even though this is a dramatically inferior weapon, designed only to fight one’s way to a rifle. Carry this weapon peacefully, and demand the peaceful treatment of your fellow man. View with prejudice the necessity of police actions, tolerating only those that are proper (retaliatory, or possess a valid “cause of action.”)

All the prior suggestions can take place in any country that is not a police state. All of the prior suggestions can take place in Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Alaska. However, if you attempt these actions in most states, the police will initiate violent aggression against you, even if you begin blowing their heads off, one by one.

What makes a the life of a man worth protecting under the common law in Montana and Alaska, but not in New York?

When the slaves were first freed in the USA, the very first law that was passed by the openly-racist Dixiecrats was the law that required all civilians to be apply with their local Sheriffs for a permit before they could carry a concealed weapon. The local Sheriffs were often racists, and/or members of the KKK. When blacks applied for such permits, they were denied, and the KKK then knew who the “uppity” (independent) Negroes were. They also then knew that such Negroes were either disarmed, or breaking “the law” (but not the “common law”). This allowed the KKK and racist bigots to lynch over 4,500 innocent blacks, with the approval of law enforcement, between 1865 and the present.

Any time there is inequality under the law, the civilization as a whole suffers.

America is now a police state. Peaceful motorists who have endangered no-one can now be pulled over, as if there was an emergency, and they can have their personal effects rummaged-through by police officers looking for contraband, which, once again, lacks a “cause of action” or “corpus delecti” under the common law. The property of these peaceful motorists is then stolen or extorted from them, absent a valid “cause of action.” This sorry lack of privacy and personal freedom has resulted in the USA having the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world.

For that reason alone, it no longer qualifies as “a free country.” But neither is it a destitute third-world socialist regime (much in spite of the efforts of our two most recent presidents). The USA is a once-free country in a continuing downward transition to a police state. I am suggesting that that transition be reversed, and that we become a once-free country in transition to a truly free country, with an optimal level of individual freedom.

All tyranny is unacceptable in a free society. Those who don’t mind even the slightest of unnecessary tyranny have a dim sense of human value, and a weak claim on human morality.

I suggest that only the simple-minded believe that the level of freedom currently experienced in the USA is “optimal.”

And, if our level of freedom is not optimal, then why accept it as given? Are we not men and women capable of changing our world for the better?

We need the right to put anything we wish into our bodies, or seek any medical treatment we desire. Without this absolute and unimpeachable right, the existing political establishment has the right to prevent us from supermodifying ourselves. The test of this right is our ability to use prohibited drugs: such drug use is scary to conformists, but it is our (currently violated) right. An even smaller community of transhumanist early adopters will demand the right to supermodify themselves. If they lack this right, then progress can and will be halted, or exist only outside of the USA in areas of the world with higher levels of “freedom by default.”

Why should any of us accept any arbitrary bureaucratic limit whatsoever with what we can do with the substrate of our own bodies? In my view, only a servile person with a submissive, “whipped dog” mentality would agree to such limits, simply because a government-educated majority voted for such limits.

I am not pleased with, and not impressed with the government-controlled education system in the USA, or the rest of the world. I believe, as did Buckminster Fuller, that most children are “de-geniused” by such systems, and taught to conform without question to unreasonable, low standards of conduct. I am not alone in this. Philip Zimbardo agrees, and has argued that we need to begin teaching our young about the harm of unquestioning conformity.

Without such privatized, accountable teaching-by-consent-only, all systems incrementally decay. (In all such systems, properly-American history, philosophy, and economics is not taught. It is not taught because it interferes with the collection of the local property taxes that finance the government-controlled schools. In all other important areas of human life, the people who choose the services, and use the services, pay for the services. Yet, in education, we have accepted the low standard afforded by compulsory participation.)

Pretend I am the government. Pay me the money to teach your kids. If I screwed up, very badly, and claimed that Johnny had gotten an A+ in American history, but had never heard about the trial of John Peter Zenger, and had no idea what “freedom of the press” was, then you’d stop paying me, would you not? You’d refuse to have another child of yours taught by me, would you not? You’d insist that not one tax dollar go toward paying my salary, would you not? If you have an American bone in your body, this is the case, since all endeavors depend on the freedom to communicate, the right to a proper trial by jury, and the freedom to amass capital.

All systems that allow the government to control education trend toward incrementally lower educational standards, which then threaten the integrity of the country (the law, the structure of society, the level of freedom) itself.

And this would be true even if the USA was otherwise a benevolent libertarian paradise (which it clearly is not).

Do I want to live in China, India, or Singapore, where the standards are even lower? No. Would I consider living in a place like La Estancia de Cafayate where the standards are (in some ways) higher? Yes. Do I think it’s too late to reverse course, and restore a high level of individual freedom to the USA? No.

Freedom in the USA is well worth fighting for. I’m one of maybe 10 people in the USA who knows how such a fight should be structured to maximum effect. The ACLU eschews political participation, but does a good job in their narrowly-defined area of courtroom legal activism. The superstructure must be looked at at least one hierarchical level higher than “electoral participation,” “court challenges,” and “nonviolent action.”

The structure of resistance is one that contains a continuum of options, depending on what level the enslavers (central bankers, politicians, military industrial complex, prison-industrial complex, and other various sociopaths) are willing to go. The first several hundred options I can think of are peaceful. In a true murdering police state like Singapore, the nonviolent options still exist, but are significantly narrowed by the lack of jury trials.

Ayn Rand had a good point when she remarked that such police states could rightfully be attacked with impunity. Harry Browne had a good point when he suggested that the tyrants of such police states needed killing, but that individuals who had a stake in justice should do the killing, and shouldn’t rely on coercing other people into paying for it.

I completely agree.

The people in Singapore who condemn young female drug runners to death (without even the chance of mercy afforded by a jury trial) should be publicly and spectacularly assassinated, as suggested as punishment for those who initiate aggression in “The Diamond Age.” The people in the USA who exported US drug policy to the slave-states of Singapore and Mexico (60,000 dead and counting) should share the exact same fate.

As we proceed toward justice, and the repeal of all “malum prohibitum” laws, perhaps this will happen.

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172217
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 07:25:58 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172217We're in complete agreement there, Bri. In fact, this method of preventing tyranny has been often suggested by David Brin.We’re in complete agreement there, Bri. In fact, this method of preventing tyranny has been often suggested by David Brin.
]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-172172
Jake_WitmerTue, 09 Jul 2013 03:25:14 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-172172I put your comments in brackets, Bri. I disagree with this comment of yours less than usual, so maybe we're clearing up the gray areas of incomprehension.
[I wonder if you realize how distorted you perspective is.]
I don't think Rob's perspective is necessarily distorted, but the problem is that a "police state in the making" is not the same as "a police state." On a scale of 1-10, the tyranny of our police state is far worse if you are black or Mexican, or if you deal with a particularly bad cop when he's in a bad mood.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXkBbAdySNc
The police, politicians, and prosecutors in the USA are indeed well on their way to becoming a superior class of citizen, and if you run afoul of them, they can harm you. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ -John Stossel's "Illegal Everything"
I have carefully measured my perspective against the existing evidence. In terms of my ability to do that, I can only point out that I believe myself to be slightly above average in intelligence, and significantly above average in terms of intellectual honesty. I've also traveled the entire USA, and interacted with the general public in most of the USA, asking them questions about their political views in an attempt to advance the libertarian agenda. I've seen in very great deal what the public believes, and what measure of tyranny they will tolerate.
The people in Stossel's special might disagree that America is not a "police state." As might vitamin retailer Roger Sless, even though he defeated the government's vindictive prosecution. The Texas vitamin store that had its books on Stevia confiscated and destroyed might also disagree with you, story here: http://www.stevia.net/bookburning.htm . (Ray Kurzweil recommends the use of Stevia, so there is possibly an interesting personal interest angle here for this site.)
[In India, a country not noted for being particularly tyrannical,]
A friend of mine from India who is very aware of their political regime would completely disagree with you. He describes the law in India as being far more arbitrary than in the USA. As does John Stossel, and he presents some evidence for that belief here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZpDjxIPpFc
[ they have police officers with long canes that patrol public parks for overt expressions of affection. If you are making out or other forms of affection, they come up unannounced and smack you with the cane. That’s not in a typical police state. It gets far worse.]
The problem seems to be that you're starting from the presumption that whatever others say is wrong, because you are content to live under this level of tyranny, even though this level of tyranny has set the stage for tomorrow's tyranny which is much worse. We are certainly on the slippery slope toward a police state with no "freedom by default." "Freedom by default" was a phrase coined by Ayn Rand to describe a state without enough resources or will to enforce the level of tyranny allowed by its degraded state of law. Additionally, "freedom by default" depends on the level to which the average citizen is capable of raising a public outcry about his mistreatment. This perfectly describes our current situation in the USA. We have a lot of wealth (largely a holdover from prior generations), and we have a high standard of living and a high expectation of freedom and property rights. This is all well and good, and due to the remnants of jury rights that we possess. I support proper trial by jury, as --by far-- the strongest limitation on abusive government power. Prior to marijuana being legalized in CO last year, the state prosecutor in Denver had stopped prosecuting marijuana cases, due to the inability to find jurors willing to convict. The progress of civilization corresponds to the progress of the citizenry, via the jury.
In many countries, the situation is far worse, as I noted above.
[ Saying that America is a police state is so exaggerated that it makes you seem like you don’t know what the term means.]
I share this sentiment to some extent. I always prefer not to overstate the case I'm arguing for. The situation in the USA is that it is a "degraded democracy" which has lost the strongest limits on government power, in practice. This has put us into a state of "freedom by default." Such freedom is no longer guaranteed by law, and the situation is very messy. Our government now arbitrarily murders its own citizens, and denies them due process. There are thousands of examples. (Just as there were when America rebelled against King George III. Even so, the Founders made Jefferson change/qualify "For denying us trial by jury" to "for denying us trial by jury in some cases." They knew that there were still often jury trials, but not always, and not generally proper ones. ...Much like today in the USA. Still, to overstate the case would have been to invite protests from British loyalists.)
[ In America I can go to the whitehouse and call the president the Antichrist. Then go home and sleep soundly.]
Maybe you can. You won't get very close to the president, though. Also, you can say all the ineffectual things you want, but when you start to have an effect, you get monitored more closely. Here's an interesting video you might like on that subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzfXOfpFcA
[You want an example of a police state in formation? The president of Poland and his top officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia. There is no official memorial allowed in Poland. The people tried to have their own memorial. The new government used root police to break it up. They are becoming a puppet satellite government of the old Soviet Union. That’s not even a bad example. Look around the world. They are everywhere.]
One primary element of confusion often arises from people who discuss tyranny. Even tyranny itself is an overly vague "suitcase word." Police state is more specific, and it does have a slightly more specific meaning. Of course, a state in which the police and enforcement apparatus are judge, jury, and executioner isn't far from the way that many executive branch agencies operate. For instance, the seizure laws have defeated the 4th amendment, and habeas corpus, etc.
[ America may have it’s share of problems but it isn’t even close to a police state.]
Tell that to Donald Scott, Vickie Weaver, or Edward Lawson. ...Oh, you can't, ...they're dead. The police state killed them, or ate up so many hours of their lives they died sick and poor. Tell that to Gary Fannon, or another of the Reagan police state's victims:
http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/rolling%20stone/920S-000-007.html
(Read the very end of the article. ...Now Gary has the right idea: there is no such thing as "property rights" that's the true core message of the Republican and Democrat Faces of "The Party." For Gary Fannon, the USA is a police state, in the worst sense of the term.)
So, that's the brief anecdote, and here's the big picture, as written by a somewhat inconsistent socialist, who nonetheless does great research:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/304669/
"The Prison-Industrial Complex" -by Eric Schlosser
"If White America Told the Truth For One Day, Its World Would Fall Apart":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXGXkhff10
The band sings the truth about socialism and false liberalism, and defends free speech and gun rights, and opposes Reaganite prohibitionism. BRILLIANT.
So, America isn't a tried and true "police state." But it's close to one. And as Doug Casey has so often and so correctly noted, that when the transition of America into a police state is complete, it will be a grotesque, and far-reaching police state, because it will have a printing-press monopoly on the world's reserve currency. It will have the wealth to enforce all the anti-freedom laws on Big Brother's books.
See: http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/rise-praetorian-class
"The Rise of the Praetorian Class" by Doug CaseyI put your comments in brackets, Bri. I disagree with this comment of yours less than usual, so maybe we’re clearing up the gray areas of incomprehension.
[I wonder if you realize how distorted you perspective is.]
I don’t think Rob’s perspective is necessarily distorted, but the problem is that a “police state in the making” is not the same as “a police state.” On a scale of 1-10, the tyranny of our police state is far worse if you are black or Mexican, or if you deal with a particularly bad cop when he’s in a bad mood.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXkBbAdySNc

The police, politicians, and prosecutors in the USA are indeed well on their way to becoming a superior class of citizen, and if you run afoul of them, they can harm you. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ -John Stossel’s “Illegal Everything”

I have carefully measured my perspective against the existing evidence. In terms of my ability to do that, I can only point out that I believe myself to be slightly above average in intelligence, and significantly above average in terms of intellectual honesty. I’ve also traveled the entire USA, and interacted with the general public in most of the USA, asking them questions about their political views in an attempt to advance the libertarian agenda. I’ve seen in very great deal what the public believes, and what measure of tyranny they will tolerate.

The people in Stossel’s special might disagree that America is not a “police state.” As might vitamin retailer Roger Sless, even though he defeated the government’s vindictive prosecution. The Texas vitamin store that had its books on Stevia confiscated and destroyed might also disagree with you, story here: http://www.stevia.net/bookburning.htm . (Ray Kurzweil recommends the use of Stevia, so there is possibly an interesting personal interest angle here for this site.)

[In India, a country not noted for being particularly tyrannical,]
A friend of mine from India who is very aware of their political regime would completely disagree with you. He describes the law in India as being far more arbitrary than in the USA. As does John Stossel, and he presents some evidence for that belief here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZpDjxIPpFc

[ they have police officers with long canes that patrol public parks for overt expressions of affection. If you are making out or other forms of affection, they come up unannounced and smack you with the cane. That’s not in a typical police state. It gets far worse.]
The problem seems to be that you’re starting from the presumption that whatever others say is wrong, because you are content to live under this level of tyranny, even though this level of tyranny has set the stage for tomorrow’s tyranny which is much worse. We are certainly on the slippery slope toward a police state with no “freedom by default.” “Freedom by default” was a phrase coined by Ayn Rand to describe a state without enough resources or will to enforce the level of tyranny allowed by its degraded state of law. Additionally, “freedom by default” depends on the level to which the average citizen is capable of raising a public outcry about his mistreatment. This perfectly describes our current situation in the USA. We have a lot of wealth (largely a holdover from prior generations), and we have a high standard of living and a high expectation of freedom and property rights. This is all well and good, and due to the remnants of jury rights that we possess. I support proper trial by jury, as –by far– the strongest limitation on abusive government power. Prior to marijuana being legalized in CO last year, the state prosecutor in Denver had stopped prosecuting marijuana cases, due to the inability to find jurors willing to convict. The progress of civilization corresponds to the progress of the citizenry, via the jury.

In many countries, the situation is far worse, as I noted above.

[ Saying that America is a police state is so exaggerated that it makes you seem like you don’t know what the term means.]
I share this sentiment to some extent. I always prefer not to overstate the case I’m arguing for. The situation in the USA is that it is a “degraded democracy” which has lost the strongest limits on government power, in practice. This has put us into a state of “freedom by default.” Such freedom is no longer guaranteed by law, and the situation is very messy. Our government now arbitrarily murders its own citizens, and denies them due process. There are thousands of examples. (Just as there were when America rebelled against King George III. Even so, the Founders made Jefferson change/qualify “For denying us trial by jury” to “for denying us trial by jury in some cases.” They knew that there were still often jury trials, but not always, and not generally proper ones. …Much like today in the USA. Still, to overstate the case would have been to invite protests from British loyalists.)

[ In America I can go to the whitehouse and call the president the Antichrist. Then go home and sleep soundly.]
Maybe you can. You won’t get very close to the president, though. Also, you can say all the ineffectual things you want, but when you start to have an effect, you get monitored more closely. Here’s an interesting video you might like on that subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzfXOfpFcA

[You want an example of a police state in formation? The president of Poland and his top officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia. There is no official memorial allowed in Poland. The people tried to have their own memorial. The new government used root police to break it up. They are becoming a puppet satellite government of the old Soviet Union. That’s not even a bad example. Look around the world. They are everywhere.]
One primary element of confusion often arises from people who discuss tyranny. Even tyranny itself is an overly vague “suitcase word.” Police state is more specific, and it does have a slightly more specific meaning. Of course, a state in which the police and enforcement apparatus are judge, jury, and executioner isn’t far from the way that many executive branch agencies operate. For instance, the seizure laws have defeated the 4th amendment, and habeas corpus, etc.

[ America may have it’s share of problems but it isn’t even close to a police state.]
Tell that to Donald Scott, Vickie Weaver, or Edward Lawson. …Oh, you can’t, …they’re dead. The police state killed them, or ate up so many hours of their lives they died sick and poor. Tell that to Gary Fannon, or another of the Reagan police state’s victims:http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/rolling%20stone/920S-000-007.html
(Read the very end of the article. …Now Gary has the right idea: there is no such thing as “property rights” that’s the true core message of the Republican and Democrat Faces of “The Party.” For Gary Fannon, the USA is a police state, in the worst sense of the term.)

“If White America Told the Truth For One Day, Its World Would Fall Apart”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXGXkhff10
The band sings the truth about socialism and false liberalism, and defends free speech and gun rights, and opposes Reaganite prohibitionism. BRILLIANT.

So, America isn’t a tried and true “police state.” But it’s close to one. And as Doug Casey has so often and so correctly noted, that when the transition of America into a police state is complete, it will be a grotesque, and far-reaching police state, because it will have a printing-press monopoly on the world’s reserve currency. It will have the wealth to enforce all the anti-freedom laws on Big Brother’s books.
See: http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/rise-praetorian-class
“The Rise of the Praetorian Class” by Doug Casey

]]>By: Jake_Witmerhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-171932
Jake_WitmerMon, 08 Jul 2013 04:04:21 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-171932Thanks for reposting this article, Amara!
It is as timely as ever, and it won't be getting any less timely, any time soon. It was one of a few small group of writings on Singularity-related websites that accurately addressed the problem of illegitimate, state authority in detail. (It seems to me that nearly all other futurists seem to have adopted a "path of least curiousity" attitude to the historical record of totalitarianism. James Halperin at least explored these ideas in "The Truth Machine" and "The First Immortal," although I think he also seemingly has too much faith on human-level intelligence.)
Statistically, democide is the greatest threat to our existence, because our psychologies have a blind spot that causes us to believe that power-seeking sociopaths are similar to ourselves, when they are not. We apply our own desire to avoid violence to them, misinterpreting their boundaries. This leads to a sociopath-driven political system. I can almost hear the emotional objections coming from the sociopaths (and their loyal conformists) now. This board will soon be even more cluttered with such nonsense and incomprehension than it already is.
(Sociopaths are not emotionless, but their emotions are narrowly self-interested. They lack empathy, not self-respect or the capacity for personal pleasure or enjoyment, or respect for beauty. This is such an alien view to most empaths that they simply cannot comprehend it. The tiny minority who can comprehend it fully, are not ready to fight it --they are disincentivized toward giving up hope and putting as much distance between themselves and "politics" as possible. Yet, running away also doesn't solve any of the serious problems posed by the sociopath system.)
Many people (mostly sociopaths and their "passive-follower" conformists, but some uninformed or inexperienced people as well) object to my referring to state prosecutors, judges, congressmen, attorneys general, and presidents as "sociopaths." Some people object to my calling for-profit-prisons, and for-profit-military contractors "sociopaths" as well. I disagree with these people, but would like to point out that my view doesn't require all of these people to be sociopaths in order for it to operate as I believe it does. A simple majority on any voting institution will cause that institution to behave as a powerful sociopath, loosed on society.
There have been some very intelligent responses to this article of Freitas's, and some responses that I think are the kind of thinking that, given sufficient numbers, lead directly to the kind of totalitarian state that Freitas is warning us about here. I'm not going to respond to these comments, because they contain a set of unbelievably sloppy arguments that I have fully refuted elsewhere, and such arguments typically degenerate into ad hominem attacks that are then moved to "the pit."
On the old KAI site, I frequently commented on this article, attempting to alert more people to the fact that the issues Rob was raising need to be addressed right now, in the "pre-Singularity." I've never seen anyone make any significant noises to that end, and there is also a general separation between futurists and the Libertarian third parties, independents, and major-party libertarian infiltrators.
I would like to see this separation disappear, toward the goal of placing an actual freedom movement as an option on the ballots, and as an option worth self-identifying with. (I would like to see more competent people get involved with the Libertarian Party, because the current LNC is comprised of incompetents who have handed 100% control of the LP to two men named Bill Redpath and Scott Kohlhaas.) The LP isn't the be-all-end-all of libertarian politics in the USA, however, it is a Party that has institutional memory of ballot access in every state, and it has been repeatedly infiltrated and corrupted by mainstream political operatives.
Possibly, many of those political operatives are tax-financed. Even so, attempts to gut the LP platform have largely failed.
Why talk about a minor party, when there is the possibility to infiltrate the major parties? Because there are a far larger number of ways to defeat such attempts, or subvert them, and so far, the system has been very good at negating attempts to infiltrate it. Also, an organized merger of well-educated people into the LP might be enough to combat its current infiltration. Moreover, such people are very clearly not currently an active part of the LNC.
1) At best: Smart people join the LP, and make it into a viable political presence that gradually educates the maximum vote totals in society that are willing to be educated.
2) Acceptable: Smart people join the LP and fail to make it into a viable political presence. This failure then allows those smart people to truly understand, at a deep level, why individuals and political systems allow themselves to be tyrannized, and allow the Federal Reserve to claim most of the wealth they will earn during their lifetimes. These people then have more knowledge about how best to pursue a system that will allow them to live an unbounded lifespan.
Obtaining a position of power in the LP is easy. Show up to meetings, and volunteer to do work. Be supportive of others who have smart plans, and try not to criticize people who have (objectively, demonstrably) stupid plans (make friends but not enemies).
Most people in the LP don't understand how Trevor Lyman used redirect websites to raise $4.3 million for Ron Paul in one day. They lack a complete picture as to how this was done. If the people at Lesswrong currently lack this picture, they are at least smart enough to comprehend it when it is explained to them. The LP raising $4M would quadruple its current operating budget, and bring in enough money for them to have a strong presence in the top 10 candidates for the "Free State Project" (prior to the nomination of New Hampshire, a state widely criticized as sub-optimal from a "numbers" perspective).
This would allow for humanity's freest (on paper) country to attempt to correct its phenotype. Potentially, the USA could be remade into a free country with a high standard of individual freedom.
To those who are judging America by the low standard set by existing police states: That America is better than many such police states doesn't mean that the current level of tyranny and oppression is acceptable. If you don't sympathize (feel empathy for) the current 1.44 million people now incarcerated in the USA for victimless crimes, then you might want to ask yourself whether you're a sociopath or not.
Sociopaths are categorized by their lack of empathy. The theory is that mirror neurons model pain responses of others, and apply that feeling of pain or discomfort to the viewer. If the viewer lacks mirror neurons they will not feel such discomfort, and may even feel curiousity, or the minor sensation of happiness that a possible enemy or competitor has been been vanquished. Such people are comfortable in positions of power which REQUIRE them to do wrong to others.
One such position is "state prosecutor." State prosecutors who are not sociopaths grossly under-perform their sociopath counterparts. Many former prosecutors, and their critics, have revealed that this is the case.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/11/27/13320/827/crimepolicy/Should-Good-People-Be-Prosecutors-
--Paul Butler, Author of "Let's Get Free," "Should Good People Be Prosecutors?"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath
--M. E. Thomas, "Confessions of a Sociopath" a prosecutor admits to being a sociopath, who laughs at the powerlessness of non-sociopaths
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=42578
--The theft of the Caswell Hotel by the government under asset forfeiture laws that deny all ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgGyvxqYSbE
--"Defense Against the Psychopath" --a fairly good overview of the problem that was more scholarly codified by the book "Political Ponerology" by Andrzej Lobaczewski, and the works of Milgram and Zimbardo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg
"The Psychology Of Evil," Philip Zimbardo talks about his "Stanford Prison Experiment" and summarizes the findings of Milgram's famous electric shock experiments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc
--"The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil" --Philip Zimbardo explains "Attributional Charity" in the Abu Ghraib investigation, includes the photos your government never allowed you to see.
Ultimately, if one is honest about the evidence, one is forced to admit that most people are not "good people" at any significant hierarchical level. Most people are generally only as good as the environment of social expectations that surrounds them. When those the authorities who communicate those expectations communicate faulty, false, incomplete, or downright sociopathic expectations, "good people" act in evil ways, one of which is to allow violent sociopaths to act violently against the innocent.
This perfectly describes the Weimar Republic decaying into the Nazis gas chambers after an inflationary economic crash. This perfectly describes "good Soviet citizens" informing on their neighbors, and having them sent to the gulag. This perfectly describes "patriotic Americans" informing on their neighbors for victimless crimes, and having them sent to the American gulag.
As a global risk, R. J. Rummel summarizes the likelihood of being killed by your own government during peacetime, in this image:
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/VIS.TEARS.ALL.AROUND.HTM
I think we should all think very, very carefully about this essay from Robert Freitas.
There is a way of preventing our steady slide towards totalitarianism, but we are already at least 3/4 of the way there. The export of U.S. drug policy of prohibition to Mexico didn't get any voters' attention in the USA, even though 60,000 innocent Mexicans have been murdered as a result of that policy (which both the Democrats and Republicans completely support).
If U.S. voters were good people, and wanted to stem the violence, they only had to vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. They didn't.
There are only two conclusions
1) They are stupid (unwittingly self-destructive). They are so uncaring that they've never read a single book about the known consequences of drug prohibition. They heard about the 60,000 dead innocents on the News and Radio, and continued to vote for the policies that caused this mass murdering.
2) They are evil. They are so uncaring that they've never read a single book about the known consequences of drug prohibition. They heard about the 60,000 dead innocents on the News and Radio, and continued to vote for the policies that caused this mass murdering.
At some point, evil and stupidity are the same things. The English phrase that best describes this immoral, evil, destructive state of mind is "uncritical conformity to the status quo."
That is the sum total of political evil. It is a result of political disengagement, and an unwillingness to question AND FULLY, LOGICALLY, EXPLORE the alternatives.
This last part is of key importance. Without becoming involved in a situation, one cannot know how that situation will be impacted. This has led many of the people involved with the Libertarian Party to favor solutions to the current problems that cannot work (such as "Forgetting about ballot access, and sending the current donor money to local libertarian parties that are temporarily outperforming the average performance level of the LP.") The people who put forth these unworkable "solutions" mean well, but have zero experience interacting with broad demographic samplings or "cross sections" of society.
Politics combines two disciplines: Rhetoric / Sophistry and Philosophy. Sophistry has gotten a bad name, because it is the tool by which sociopaths gain control over police power. Sophistry is used without philosophy, because the philosophical standards of the general public are incredibly low. This is because the status quo government controls "the education system" by controlling outright "the public schools" and controls government loans that people use to access secondary education. By the time someone enters the workforce, they have been propagandized with mostly-incorrect history, philosophy, and economics for 22 years.
Contained in the entire communication above is a rather complete picture revealing how systems such as "partial, degraded democracies" or "corrupted republics" destroy themselves. The destruction is recursive. A small initial error doesn't do much to harm a society that has widespread respect for free speech and freedom of the press, and jury independence.
But after jury independence had been effectively eliminated, the courts began to empower the voices who desire an end to freedom of speech. When freedom of the press finally disappears, the sociopaths will be very emboldened, indeed. This is when "democide" or "totalitarianism" comes into its full power.
Only technology can prevent this from occurring. Sadly, the sociopaths currently control much, if not most, system-wide "security" or "force-projecting" technology. They, via their "state" can project force far and wide. Information technology is a weak secondary power that challenges this "physical force legitimized by the color of law."
Ultimately, the largest impediment to an unlimited, totalitarian state in the USA is private ownership of firearms. For that reason, the (elected and appointed) sociopaths cannot simply cart us off to the gulag with no trial, and take all of our personal possessions.
...But never forget that they'd like to. That would be a mistake, and that mistake would brand you as an ignorant conformist in relation to careful observers of reality.Thanks for reposting this article, Amara!

It is as timely as ever, and it won’t be getting any less timely, any time soon. It was one of a few small group of writings on Singularity-related websites that accurately addressed the problem of illegitimate, state authority in detail. (It seems to me that nearly all other futurists seem to have adopted a “path of least curiousity” attitude to the historical record of totalitarianism. James Halperin at least explored these ideas in “The Truth Machine” and “The First Immortal,” although I think he also seemingly has too much faith on human-level intelligence.)

Statistically, democide is the greatest threat to our existence, because our psychologies have a blind spot that causes us to believe that power-seeking sociopaths are similar to ourselves, when they are not. We apply our own desire to avoid violence to them, misinterpreting their boundaries. This leads to a sociopath-driven political system. I can almost hear the emotional objections coming from the sociopaths (and their loyal conformists) now. This board will soon be even more cluttered with such nonsense and incomprehension than it already is.

(Sociopaths are not emotionless, but their emotions are narrowly self-interested. They lack empathy, not self-respect or the capacity for personal pleasure or enjoyment, or respect for beauty. This is such an alien view to most empaths that they simply cannot comprehend it. The tiny minority who can comprehend it fully, are not ready to fight it –they are disincentivized toward giving up hope and putting as much distance between themselves and “politics” as possible. Yet, running away also doesn’t solve any of the serious problems posed by the sociopath system.)

Many people (mostly sociopaths and their “passive-follower” conformists, but some uninformed or inexperienced people as well) object to my referring to state prosecutors, judges, congressmen, attorneys general, and presidents as “sociopaths.” Some people object to my calling for-profit-prisons, and for-profit-military contractors “sociopaths” as well. I disagree with these people, but would like to point out that my view doesn’t require all of these people to be sociopaths in order for it to operate as I believe it does. A simple majority on any voting institution will cause that institution to behave as a powerful sociopath, loosed on society.

There have been some very intelligent responses to this article of Freitas’s, and some responses that I think are the kind of thinking that, given sufficient numbers, lead directly to the kind of totalitarian state that Freitas is warning us about here. I’m not going to respond to these comments, because they contain a set of unbelievably sloppy arguments that I have fully refuted elsewhere, and such arguments typically degenerate into ad hominem attacks that are then moved to “the pit.”

On the old KAI site, I frequently commented on this article, attempting to alert more people to the fact that the issues Rob was raising need to be addressed right now, in the “pre-Singularity.” I’ve never seen anyone make any significant noises to that end, and there is also a general separation between futurists and the Libertarian third parties, independents, and major-party libertarian infiltrators.

I would like to see this separation disappear, toward the goal of placing an actual freedom movement as an option on the ballots, and as an option worth self-identifying with. (I would like to see more competent people get involved with the Libertarian Party, because the current LNC is comprised of incompetents who have handed 100% control of the LP to two men named Bill Redpath and Scott Kohlhaas.) The LP isn’t the be-all-end-all of libertarian politics in the USA, however, it is a Party that has institutional memory of ballot access in every state, and it has been repeatedly infiltrated and corrupted by mainstream political operatives.

Possibly, many of those political operatives are tax-financed. Even so, attempts to gut the LP platform have largely failed.

Why talk about a minor party, when there is the possibility to infiltrate the major parties? Because there are a far larger number of ways to defeat such attempts, or subvert them, and so far, the system has been very good at negating attempts to infiltrate it. Also, an organized merger of well-educated people into the LP might be enough to combat its current infiltration. Moreover, such people are very clearly not currently an active part of the LNC.

1) At best: Smart people join the LP, and make it into a viable political presence that gradually educates the maximum vote totals in society that are willing to be educated.
2) Acceptable: Smart people join the LP and fail to make it into a viable political presence. This failure then allows those smart people to truly understand, at a deep level, why individuals and political systems allow themselves to be tyrannized, and allow the Federal Reserve to claim most of the wealth they will earn during their lifetimes. These people then have more knowledge about how best to pursue a system that will allow them to live an unbounded lifespan.

Obtaining a position of power in the LP is easy. Show up to meetings, and volunteer to do work. Be supportive of others who have smart plans, and try not to criticize people who have (objectively, demonstrably) stupid plans (make friends but not enemies).

Most people in the LP don’t understand how Trevor Lyman used redirect websites to raise $4.3 million for Ron Paul in one day. They lack a complete picture as to how this was done. If the people at Lesswrong currently lack this picture, they are at least smart enough to comprehend it when it is explained to them. The LP raising $4M would quadruple its current operating budget, and bring in enough money for them to have a strong presence in the top 10 candidates for the “Free State Project” (prior to the nomination of New Hampshire, a state widely criticized as sub-optimal from a “numbers” perspective).

This would allow for humanity’s freest (on paper) country to attempt to correct its phenotype. Potentially, the USA could be remade into a free country with a high standard of individual freedom.

To those who are judging America by the low standard set by existing police states: That America is better than many such police states doesn’t mean that the current level of tyranny and oppression is acceptable. If you don’t sympathize (feel empathy for) the current 1.44 million people now incarcerated in the USA for victimless crimes, then you might want to ask yourself whether you’re a sociopath or not.

Sociopaths are categorized by their lack of empathy. The theory is that mirror neurons model pain responses of others, and apply that feeling of pain or discomfort to the viewer. If the viewer lacks mirror neurons they will not feel such discomfort, and may even feel curiousity, or the minor sensation of happiness that a possible enemy or competitor has been been vanquished. Such people are comfortable in positions of power which REQUIRE them to do wrong to others.

One such position is “state prosecutor.” State prosecutors who are not sociopaths grossly under-perform their sociopath counterparts. Many former prosecutors, and their critics, have revealed that this is the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgGyvxqYSbE
–”Defense Against the Psychopath” –a fairly good overview of the problem that was more scholarly codified by the book “Political Ponerology” by Andrzej Lobaczewski, and the works of Milgram and Zimbardo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc
–”The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil” –Philip Zimbardo explains “Attributional Charity” in the Abu Ghraib investigation, includes the photos your government never allowed you to see.

Ultimately, if one is honest about the evidence, one is forced to admit that most people are not “good people” at any significant hierarchical level. Most people are generally only as good as the environment of social expectations that surrounds them. When those the authorities who communicate those expectations communicate faulty, false, incomplete, or downright sociopathic expectations, “good people” act in evil ways, one of which is to allow violent sociopaths to act violently against the innocent.

This perfectly describes the Weimar Republic decaying into the Nazis gas chambers after an inflationary economic crash. This perfectly describes “good Soviet citizens” informing on their neighbors, and having them sent to the gulag. This perfectly describes “patriotic Americans” informing on their neighbors for victimless crimes, and having them sent to the American gulag.

I think we should all think very, very carefully about this essay from Robert Freitas.

There is a way of preventing our steady slide towards totalitarianism, but we are already at least 3/4 of the way there. The export of U.S. drug policy of prohibition to Mexico didn’t get any voters’ attention in the USA, even though 60,000 innocent Mexicans have been murdered as a result of that policy (which both the Democrats and Republicans completely support).

If U.S. voters were good people, and wanted to stem the violence, they only had to vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. They didn’t.
There are only two conclusions
1) They are stupid (unwittingly self-destructive). They are so uncaring that they’ve never read a single book about the known consequences of drug prohibition. They heard about the 60,000 dead innocents on the News and Radio, and continued to vote for the policies that caused this mass murdering.
2) They are evil. They are so uncaring that they’ve never read a single book about the known consequences of drug prohibition. They heard about the 60,000 dead innocents on the News and Radio, and continued to vote for the policies that caused this mass murdering.

At some point, evil and stupidity are the same things. The English phrase that best describes this immoral, evil, destructive state of mind is “uncritical conformity to the status quo.”

That is the sum total of political evil. It is a result of political disengagement, and an unwillingness to question AND FULLY, LOGICALLY, EXPLORE the alternatives.

This last part is of key importance. Without becoming involved in a situation, one cannot know how that situation will be impacted. This has led many of the people involved with the Libertarian Party to favor solutions to the current problems that cannot work (such as “Forgetting about ballot access, and sending the current donor money to local libertarian parties that are temporarily outperforming the average performance level of the LP.”) The people who put forth these unworkable “solutions” mean well, but have zero experience interacting with broad demographic samplings or “cross sections” of society.

Politics combines two disciplines: Rhetoric / Sophistry and Philosophy. Sophistry has gotten a bad name, because it is the tool by which sociopaths gain control over police power. Sophistry is used without philosophy, because the philosophical standards of the general public are incredibly low. This is because the status quo government controls “the education system” by controlling outright “the public schools” and controls government loans that people use to access secondary education. By the time someone enters the workforce, they have been propagandized with mostly-incorrect history, philosophy, and economics for 22 years.

Contained in the entire communication above is a rather complete picture revealing how systems such as “partial, degraded democracies” or “corrupted republics” destroy themselves. The destruction is recursive. A small initial error doesn’t do much to harm a society that has widespread respect for free speech and freedom of the press, and jury independence.

But after jury independence had been effectively eliminated, the courts began to empower the voices who desire an end to freedom of speech. When freedom of the press finally disappears, the sociopaths will be very emboldened, indeed. This is when “democide” or “totalitarianism” comes into its full power.

Only technology can prevent this from occurring. Sadly, the sociopaths currently control much, if not most, system-wide “security” or “force-projecting” technology. They, via their “state” can project force far and wide. Information technology is a weak secondary power that challenges this “physical force legitimized by the color of law.”

Ultimately, the largest impediment to an unlimited, totalitarian state in the USA is private ownership of firearms. For that reason, the (elected and appointed) sociopaths cannot simply cart us off to the gulag with no trial, and take all of our personal possessions.

…But never forget that they’d like to. That would be a mistake, and that mistake would brand you as an ignorant conformist in relation to careful observers of reality.

]]>By: Jason Mhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-171920
Jason MMon, 08 Jul 2013 01:51:09 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-171920You and that Jake Witmer are similar: spoiled Americans.
If you love countries like India, then move!
If the world is full of India-type (poor and dirty) countries, the Singularity will never happen.You and that Jake Witmer are similar: spoiled Americans.
If you love countries like India, then move!
If the world is full of India-type (poor and dirty) countries, the Singularity will never happen.
]]>By: anonhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-171914
anonSun, 07 Jul 2013 23:48:38 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-171914America is a police state.. just a fairly pleasant one. I'd rather have the indian police bureau with their ti-43 calculators and one working toilet than a jacked-in SWAT team.
And my guess is that example of hitting loose women with a stick is probably popular with a large portion of the traditional indian culture. And taking an example like that out of context serves no purpose. In some indian hindu village, there are tales told of police in america eating cows, and they must think we're fiends.America is a police state.. just a fairly pleasant one. I’d rather have the indian police bureau with their ti-43 calculators and one working toilet than a jacked-in SWAT team.

And my guess is that example of hitting loose women with a stick is probably popular with a large portion of the traditional indian culture. And taking an example like that out of context serves no purpose. In some indian hindu village, there are tales told of police in america eating cows, and they must think we’re fiends.

]]>By: anonhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-171910
anonSun, 07 Jul 2013 23:24:53 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-171910The most powerful weapon of the 20th century was probably the TV. Every president and senator understands this. Every spook agency in the world goes straight for the communication lines. Maybe these people are the ones you should be asking about the true motivations of power. Once the NSA creates its holy grail machine, it will spend 99% of its time sniffing out snowdens and 1% of its time look for 'the real killers'.. or 'terrorists'. What do you think the next president cares about more.. looking bad on TV or protecting people... If you watnt to 'get' power.. talk to powerful people. Stalin would be a good start.. see what he thinks of your 'allibi machine' lol. Juries free innocent people.. 90% of prosecutors out there working for the state would convict an innocent man to boost his convictions rates if he could. Juries are 12 random people.. not spooks and power-players. Lose that for a machine, and I'll see you in the 14th century.The most powerful weapon of the 20th century was probably the TV. Every president and senator understands this. Every spook agency in the world goes straight for the communication lines. Maybe these people are the ones you should be asking about the true motivations of power. Once the NSA creates its holy grail machine, it will spend 99% of its time sniffing out snowdens and 1% of its time look for ‘the real killers’.. or ‘terrorists’. What do you think the next president cares about more.. looking bad on TV or protecting people… If you watnt to ‘get’ power.. talk to powerful people. Stalin would be a good start.. see what he thinks of your ‘allibi machine’ lol. Juries free innocent people.. 90% of prosecutors out there working for the state would convict an innocent man to boost his convictions rates if he could. Juries are 12 random people.. not spooks and power-players. Lose that for a machine, and I’ll see you in the 14th century.
]]>By: Gaborhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169957
GaborMon, 01 Jul 2013 07:53:01 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169957Wow Mr. X, I'm not sure how I insulted you, but I do apologize. I come to this site to discuss technology and not politics. I only left a message here because of the matter of surveillance and how it will have to be way more personal in the coming decades if we want to survive until the technological singularity.
I am, by the way, Hungarian but obviously you and I had a very different experience in life.Wow Mr. X, I’m not sure how I insulted you, but I do apologize. I come to this site to discuss technology and not politics. I only left a message here because of the matter of surveillance and how it will have to be way more personal in the coming decades if we want to survive until the technological singularity.
I am, by the way, Hungarian but obviously you and I had a very different experience in life.
]]>By: Brihttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169843
BriSun, 30 Jun 2013 19:47:22 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169843I only relate what he said to me. He was born in Poland and loved through the Soviet period. I take his word as I take anybodies word, which includes yours. It's their opinion. I don't disagree with your analysis of him saying the twenties. I think it was more a figure of speech.
I fo look to you for your opinion. It is of value to me. I encourage you to counter what he says. I'm not going to challenge him, he imy friend and I don't have info to refute it. I don't treat you, him, Jake, or anyone who may have a contrary opinion to me, with any disrespect. I value people not ideologies. Even if I totally disagree I will always support your rights to express and change any infringements. The world needs civility.
I can give you another example in reference to Z. I call him that because that's common in America. It a sign of friendship. Many people call me B. I sometimes refer to you as X in the same manner. There never is a sense of disrespect when I do this.
Z hate Russians. He wastes no opportunity to tell me how he feels about them. He had to serve in the soviet army and many of his stories concern interactions at that time with Russians from outside of his country. one of the things he has said is that Russians are ruthless. he gives as an example a response that one of their generals gave in reference to avian flue. The general suggested deploying the army on the border and shooting everybird that flies over. I font know if this is rhetorical. It does give me an impression based on his feelings.
A close friend of his married a Russian woman. She was born near Moscow. When I met her, her husband needed to talk business with Z. I talked with her for about an hour. One of the things I asked her was about what it was like for her during the cold war. With a sinister grin she told me of how they were going to bury America. I retorted that MAD would make both countries unlivable . She laughed and got right up in my face, poking me in the chest and said that they have great bomb shelters. That they practiced living in them. That they would have won the war and then made America theirs.
Me and Z laugh about how ruthless those statement were. That it was like the Generals avian statement. We both treat Lena with full respect and show no prejudism toward her. I think that is right. She was indoctrinated with bad ideas. It's up to the rest of us to foster good ideas and get past the old hatred. This applies to all Russians and Germans. At the same time we are fully aware that those thoughts still exist and that we should be aware of past tendencies.
This is applicable to this article. We need to be aware of subversive elements in the worlds society. No dellusionments. By the same token no pre judging. Each person is an individuals to make their own choices. I do this and so Does Z. I'm hoping that you will counter his statements with things that show how our countries are moving past old ideologies. Let us work towards peace. That doesn't mean turning a blind eye toward anything including American atrocities. I will work toward peace and understanding. I will treat everyone the way that I treat Z,Lena,Jake,Amara, or you. You all have the right to express your feelings. We are all in this together. We need to be respectful of each other. Hopefully we don't blow ourselves up.I only relate what he said to me. He was born in Poland and loved through the Soviet period. I take his word as I take anybodies word, which includes yours. It’s their opinion. I don’t disagree with your analysis of him saying the twenties. I think it was more a figure of speech.

I fo look to you for your opinion. It is of value to me. I encourage you to counter what he says. I’m not going to challenge him, he imy friend and I don’t have info to refute it. I don’t treat you, him, Jake, or anyone who may have a contrary opinion to me, with any disrespect. I value people not ideologies. Even if I totally disagree I will always support your rights to express and change any infringements. The world needs civility.
I can give you another example in reference to Z. I call him that because that’s common in America. It a sign of friendship. Many people call me B. I sometimes refer to you as X in the same manner. There never is a sense of disrespect when I do this.

Z hate Russians. He wastes no opportunity to tell me how he feels about them. He had to serve in the soviet army and many of his stories concern interactions at that time with Russians from outside of his country. one of the things he has said is that Russians are ruthless. he gives as an example a response that one of their generals gave in reference to avian flue. The general suggested deploying the army on the border and shooting everybird that flies over. I font know if this is rhetorical. It does give me an impression based on his feelings.

A close friend of his married a Russian woman. She was born near Moscow. When I met her, her husband needed to talk business with Z. I talked with her for about an hour. One of the things I asked her was about what it was like for her during the cold war. With a sinister grin she told me of how they were going to bury America. I retorted that MAD would make both countries unlivable . She laughed and got right up in my face, poking me in the chest and said that they have great bomb shelters. That they practiced living in them. That they would have won the war and then made America theirs.

Me and Z laugh about how ruthless those statement were. That it was like the Generals avian statement. We both treat Lena with full respect and show no prejudism toward her. I think that is right. She was indoctrinated with bad ideas. It’s up to the rest of us to foster good ideas and get past the old hatred. This applies to all Russians and Germans. At the same time we are fully aware that those thoughts still exist and that we should be aware of past tendencies.

This is applicable to this article. We need to be aware of subversive elements in the worlds society. No dellusionments. By the same token no pre judging. Each person is an individuals to make their own choices. I do this and so Does Z. I’m hoping that you will counter his statements with things that show how our countries are moving past old ideologies. Let us work towards peace. That doesn’t mean turning a blind eye toward anything including American atrocities. I will work toward peace and understanding. I will treat everyone the way that I treat Z,Lena,Jake,Amara, or you. You all have the right to express your feelings. We are all in this together. We need to be respectful of each other. Hopefully we don’t blow ourselves up.

]]>By: Mr.Xhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169827
Mr.XSun, 30 Jun 2013 19:01:40 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169827Gabor: "I must agree with Bri on this one. Not talking about particularly the Polish example (I don’t have enough info on that.). "
You judge my people without ever having been here or you haven't read what we wrote.I am sick and tired of people like you insulting us.You also gave no arguments as to why you agree with him.Prejudiced and arrogant.Go believe in your government like good sheeples should.
Gabor: "before you’re judging your own government’s attempts to keep you safe or if you are confused about who are the real heroes and traitors!"
It is not "my own government", therefore I ask you why you adress this comment to me?I guess that makes my opinion invalid per default, since I am not part of the only important group of humans called Americans.
Well, anyhow, my family lived through 2-4 dictatorships, depending on the way you count, and I still disagree with you.How is it protection to spy on the whole world and murder countless people?
How is it protection to save tons of information without the willingness and knowledge of the people targeted.
I take that as an assault on my person, and will keep it in mind the next time I deal with Americans in real live.
That you think in terms of heroes and traitors alone tells me enough about you. I stand by my word, the USA is a fascist country:
www.fascismusa.com
I have seen you play the apologist in many threads.I guess I should compose a boiler-plate of standard answers for people like you.
Ps: Nazi Germany was a police state in a sense, and it was far from being a poor country, compared to the competition.Therefore your claim about only poor countries being opressive is bs.Besides, your state apperatus might be rich, if being heavily endebted counts as being rich, but you have over 40 million people living from food stamps and a general low level of education (which is very expensive).Gabor: “I must agree with Bri on this one. Not talking about particularly the Polish example (I don’t have enough info on that.). ”

You judge my people without ever having been here or you haven’t read what we wrote.I am sick and tired of people like you insulting us.You also gave no arguments as to why you agree with him.Prejudiced and arrogant.Go believe in your government like good sheeples should.

Gabor: “before you’re judging your own government’s attempts to keep you safe or if you are confused about who are the real heroes and traitors!”

It is not “my own government”, therefore I ask you why you adress this comment to me?I guess that makes my opinion invalid per default, since I am not part of the only important group of humans called Americans.

Well, anyhow, my family lived through 2-4 dictatorships, depending on the way you count, and I still disagree with you.How is it protection to spy on the whole world and murder countless people?
How is it protection to save tons of information without the willingness and knowledge of the people targeted.

I take that as an assault on my person, and will keep it in mind the next time I deal with Americans in real live.

That you think in terms of heroes and traitors alone tells me enough about you. I stand by my word, the USA is a fascist country:http://www.fascismusa.com

I have seen you play the apologist in many threads.I guess I should compose a boiler-plate of standard answers for people like you.

Ps: Nazi Germany was a police state in a sense, and it was far from being a poor country, compared to the competition.Therefore your claim about only poor countries being opressive is bs.Besides, your state apperatus might be rich, if being heavily endebted counts as being rich, but you have over 40 million people living from food stamps and a general low level of education (which is very expensive).

]]>By: Gaborhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169796
GaborSun, 30 Jun 2013 18:06:05 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169796I must agree with Bri on this one. Not talking about particularly the Polish example (I don't have enough info on that.). Just in general, Americans have NO IDEA what a real "police" state is like. Or what it's like to have a WEAK government. Yes a "police state" is a weak form of government where the only way they can preserve power is to oppress every bit of humanity - translation into American: they physically punish you for one wrong word (up to death), not because the word is "divine" but because they want to make you an example to crush every bit of uprising thoughts in all the others.
Americans tend to mistake government protection to oppression because they did not experience what a real oppressive government is doing. It's one thing to read about it and another to experience it.
For all those who are afraid that the US is heading towards an oppressive police state. Please remember that the "police state" you are afraid of is only possible in a poor country. The US is one of the richest countries in the World and any attempt to isolate it (the police state you are thinking of) is just not possible because the citizens have access to resources/information/education/guns/etc...due to the real power in the US that is commercialism. Corporation (the rulers) depend on your ability to freely spend your money.
Please don't confuse protection with oppression. I know it's a cliche but do go to a country that has an oppressive government (or at least talk to people somehow who were in those countries, since I don't want you to die) before you're judging your own government's attempts to keep you safe or if you are confused about who are the real heroes and traitors!I must agree with Bri on this one. Not talking about particularly the Polish example (I don’t have enough info on that.). Just in general, Americans have NO IDEA what a real “police” state is like. Or what it’s like to have a WEAK government. Yes a “police state” is a weak form of government where the only way they can preserve power is to oppress every bit of humanity – translation into American: they physically punish you for one wrong word (up to death), not because the word is “divine” but because they want to make you an example to crush every bit of uprising thoughts in all the others.
Americans tend to mistake government protection to oppression because they did not experience what a real oppressive government is doing. It’s one thing to read about it and another to experience it.
For all those who are afraid that the US is heading towards an oppressive police state. Please remember that the “police state” you are afraid of is only possible in a poor country. The US is one of the richest countries in the World and any attempt to isolate it (the police state you are thinking of) is just not possible because the citizens have access to resources/information/education/guns/etc…due to the real power in the US that is commercialism. Corporation (the rulers) depend on your ability to freely spend your money.
Please don’t confuse protection with oppression. I know it’s a cliche but do go to a country that has an oppressive government (or at least talk to people somehow who were in those countries, since I don’t want you to die) before you’re judging your own government’s attempts to keep you safe or if you are confused about who are the real heroes and traitors!
]]>By: Mr.Xhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169769
Mr.XSun, 30 Jun 2013 16:20:30 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169769Bri: "He told me he had worked there for many years and that the people wee living in the 1920,s I asked what do you mean.He said they still think they can control the world "
I don't give a **** about what some retard allegedly told you.Yeah, Joe Sightseer, the most Polish person on earth is surely an expert on his country.Oh wait.You know: I know people who conduct business in my country, and live here for years, and they don't know the least bit.There are people born here not knowing that we and the French disliked each other, thinking we were always pals.I don't need to get started on the expat bubbles everywhere, do I?
Honestly, I bet your friend who allegedly lived here can't even speak German to any sufficient degree.So how does he know what we think?I bet he's the typical ugly American: "I was there and the people didn't smile at me!Not everyone spoke English!The signs were in German only!Damned Nazis!"
Dude, your fake smiles are just creepy, like your half-courtesy.Pure superficiality.And that's a very European view, nothing special or "germanic" about it.
Besides, strong knowledge of history in you: Germany in the 20's had just lost her war, and people were far from thinking themselves able to control the world.The French and Belgian armies crossed the borders a couple of times to put down people who didn't want to work just to pay absurdly high reperations.Yeah, they put down our strikes.I bet that made us feel mighty.
Furthermore this accusation coming from an American is like a pot calling the kettle black.Like your cyber espionage thingy and then slandering China for much less than that.I saw you on here dreaming about world domination and American surpremacy.Not even the Nazis wanted the kind of domination that some Americans assume to be their birthright.
Pure arrogance of you to judge others.Like a mass murderer condemning someone because he slapped someone else, or because the person's grand-grandpa killed people too.
Bri: " That the spirit that caused WWI and II was alive and well."
Pure condescending, patronizing statements made in ignorance.Not even your American historians claim we caused WW1.Not even WW2 was caused by us alone.Go read a book for a change.
The spirit that causes such things is your Statism and mindless replication of age-old propaganda.
Besides, your disgusting country should stop infringing on my rights.Do you think we are subhumans or why do you think you have the right to infringe on my right to privacy?
Bri: " He’s the one who told me all the information about the assassination of his former president"
Ridiculous conspiracy theory.Some right-wing president thought he knew better than the pilot and forced him to attempt a landing under bad conditions.Or else he'd lose his job.The plane crashed, both sides investigated the event.No assassination.The people voted soon thereafter for the party on the opposite political spectrum instead of voting for the brother of this allegedly beloved, deceased president.Once again you showed your ignorance.The new president is a much more reasonable man by any standards.Look it up yourself.
Bri: " He tells me much about his country and the state of affairs in Europe"
He must be an absolute nutjob if he thinks Poland is about to become a puppet state of Russia.He has absolutely no knowledge of Europe if he equates Russia with the Soviet union.
Poland is so subordinate towards Russia?:That's why their relationship with Russia is strained because they were adamant about stationing Nato rockets on their eastern border (which is not a border with Russia).
The eastern Europeans would never subject themselves to Russia without a fight.My polish Acquaintances are sure about that.They are real Poles, not Americans with American prejudices against European countries, thinking they know all when they live with some weeks someplace else, with their closed minds and insulting the very people who gave them their rights as guest.
And if the Poles all think we're so bad, why are we having this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Triangle .
Most so-called Poles I'd encountered slandering my country were Americans to the umpteenth generation.Probably like your friend visiting his family.Not to say that all Poles like us^^
I have yet to meet an American that understood another country, at least a little bit.But like the Chinese, Koreans etc (according to an artice I read) you guys are too hung up on being yourselves to really be open to other things.
Bri: " I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement."
So your source's name is Joe Sight.Haha.Typical American.What did you derive my attitude from?Are you mad at me just because I called you out on your bs about Poland?It is a matter of fact that Mr.Kaczinsky wasn't assassinated.And a country is no police state just because a minority can't build their monuments everywhere.
Your country on the other hand spies on the whole world, you need hours to leave an airport because of all the snooping going on there, your police handles protesters like the police in Turkey or worse, you have the most people per capita imprisoned, you have only two parties wielding influence that both look alike, your media isn't free, you still have the death penalty and you have magnificent wonders of justice like the patriot act.
To insult Poland by equating it with your country concerning these matters is the height of insolence.And now you dare talk about my attitude?You're a joke, and not a funny one either.
Bri: "Sorry X it’s all very confirmed. It’s not hearsay."
You just told me your only source is an acquaintance of yours, who according to you is very knowledgeable on the subject.How's that not hearsay? And how can you judge his expertise if you yourself know next to nothing?That's very confirmed to you?
Bri: "Sorry X it’s all very confirmed. It’s not hearsay."
+
Bri: " I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement."
Sorry, but it seems you're an idiot.Please don't bother me if all you can do is come up with some anecdotal stories that may not even be true and some old-fashioned guilt-pushing.
I really don't care about your opinion on us, as it is one given birth by pure ignorance and lack of education coupled with arrogance.And I will certainly not beg for your approval.
I am not a brown-noser, your so called balance is something you'll never get from me.What you're really after is subordination.If we dare speak up, you slander.The opinion of such a person is of no concern to me.
Given your constant acts of hostility against my country I see no reason to change my opinions.
Anyway, in light of recent relevations about your country I'd shut my mouth before slandering others.Bri: “He told me he had worked there for many years and that the people wee living in the 1920,s I asked what do you mean.He said they still think they can control the world ”

I don’t give a **** about what some retard allegedly told you.Yeah, Joe Sightseer, the most Polish person on earth is surely an expert on his country.Oh wait.You know: I know people who conduct business in my country, and live here for years, and they don’t know the least bit.There are people born here not knowing that we and the French disliked each other, thinking we were always pals.I don’t need to get started on the expat bubbles everywhere, do I?

Honestly, I bet your friend who allegedly lived here can’t even speak German to any sufficient degree.So how does he know what we think?I bet he’s the typical ugly American: “I was there and the people didn’t smile at me!Not everyone spoke English!The signs were in German only!Damned Nazis!”

Dude, your fake smiles are just creepy, like your half-courtesy.Pure superficiality.And that’s a very European view, nothing special or “germanic” about it.

Besides, strong knowledge of history in you: Germany in the 20′s had just lost her war, and people were far from thinking themselves able to control the world.The French and Belgian armies crossed the borders a couple of times to put down people who didn’t want to work just to pay absurdly high reperations.Yeah, they put down our strikes.I bet that made us feel mighty.

Furthermore this accusation coming from an American is like a pot calling the kettle black.Like your cyber espionage thingy and then slandering China for much less than that.I saw you on here dreaming about world domination and American surpremacy.Not even the Nazis wanted the kind of domination that some Americans assume to be their birthright.

Pure arrogance of you to judge others.Like a mass murderer condemning someone because he slapped someone else, or because the person’s grand-grandpa killed people too.

Bri: ” That the spirit that caused WWI and II was alive and well.”

Pure condescending, patronizing statements made in ignorance.Not even your American historians claim we caused WW1.Not even WW2 was caused by us alone.Go read a book for a change.

The spirit that causes such things is your Statism and mindless replication of age-old propaganda.

Besides, your disgusting country should stop infringing on my rights.Do you think we are subhumans or why do you think you have the right to infringe on my right to privacy?

Bri: ” He’s the one who told me all the information about the assassination of his former president”

Ridiculous conspiracy theory.Some right-wing president thought he knew better than the pilot and forced him to attempt a landing under bad conditions.Or else he’d lose his job.The plane crashed, both sides investigated the event.No assassination.The people voted soon thereafter for the party on the opposite political spectrum instead of voting for the brother of this allegedly beloved, deceased president.Once again you showed your ignorance.The new president is a much more reasonable man by any standards.Look it up yourself.

Bri: ” He tells me much about his country and the state of affairs in Europe”

He must be an absolute nutjob if he thinks Poland is about to become a puppet state of Russia.He has absolutely no knowledge of Europe if he equates Russia with the Soviet union.

Poland is so subordinate towards Russia?:That’s why their relationship with Russia is strained because they were adamant about stationing Nato rockets on their eastern border (which is not a border with Russia).

The eastern Europeans would never subject themselves to Russia without a fight.My polish Acquaintances are sure about that.They are real Poles, not Americans with American prejudices against European countries, thinking they know all when they live with some weeks someplace else, with their closed minds and insulting the very people who gave them their rights as guest.

And if the Poles all think we’re so bad, why are we having this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Triangle .

Most so-called Poles I’d encountered slandering my country were Americans to the umpteenth generation.Probably like your friend visiting his family.Not to say that all Poles like us^^

I have yet to meet an American that understood another country, at least a little bit.But like the Chinese, Koreans etc (according to an artice I read) you guys are too hung up on being yourselves to really be open to other things.

Bri: ” I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement.”

So your source’s name is Joe Sight.Haha.Typical American.What did you derive my attitude from?Are you mad at me just because I called you out on your bs about Poland?It is a matter of fact that Mr.Kaczinsky wasn’t assassinated.And a country is no police state just because a minority can’t build their monuments everywhere.

Your country on the other hand spies on the whole world, you need hours to leave an airport because of all the snooping going on there, your police handles protesters like the police in Turkey or worse, you have the most people per capita imprisoned, you have only two parties wielding influence that both look alike, your media isn’t free, you still have the death penalty and you have magnificent wonders of justice like the patriot act.

To insult Poland by equating it with your country concerning these matters is the height of insolence.And now you dare talk about my attitude?You’re a joke, and not a funny one either.

Bri: “Sorry X it’s all very confirmed. It’s not hearsay.”

You just told me your only source is an acquaintance of yours, who according to you is very knowledgeable on the subject.How’s that not hearsay? And how can you judge his expertise if you yourself know next to nothing?That’s very confirmed to you?

Bri: “Sorry X it’s all very confirmed. It’s not hearsay.”
+
Bri: ” I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement.”

Sorry, but it seems you’re an idiot.Please don’t bother me if all you can do is come up with some anecdotal stories that may not even be true and some old-fashioned guilt-pushing.

I really don’t care about your opinion on us, as it is one given birth by pure ignorance and lack of education coupled with arrogance.And I will certainly not beg for your approval.

I am not a brown-noser, your so called balance is something you’ll never get from me.What you’re really after is subordination.If we dare speak up, you slander.The opinion of such a person is of no concern to me.

Given your constant acts of hostility against my country I see no reason to change my opinions.

Anyway, in light of recent relevations about your country I’d shut my mouth before slandering others.

]]>By: Brihttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169598
BriSun, 30 Jun 2013 00:54:29 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169598My business partner is right now visiting his family in Poland. He's the one who told me all the information about the assassination of his former president in the plane crash in Russia a few years ago. Sight has duel citizenship. He tells me much about his country and the state of affairs in Europe. He is quite knowledgable on the subjects and shows me website information. His wife fears that he will be imprisoned because he is too concern about what is happening. Sorry X it's all very confirmed. It's not hearsay. He is very vocal about those issues. When you first started posting I asked him about Germany. I didn't tell him about you, I just asked what it was like. He told me he had worked there for many years and that the people wee living in the 1920,s I asked what do you mean. He said they still think they can control the world. That the spirit that caused WWI and II was alive and well. I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement.My business partner is right now visiting his family in Poland. He’s the one who told me all the information about the assassination of his former president in the plane crash in Russia a few years ago. Sight has duel citizenship. He tells me much about his country and the state of affairs in Europe. He is quite knowledgable on the subjects and shows me website information. His wife fears that he will be imprisoned because he is too concern about what is happening. Sorry X it’s all very confirmed. It’s not hearsay. He is very vocal about those issues. When you first started posting I asked him about Germany. I didn’t tell him about you, I just asked what it was like. He told me he had worked there for many years and that the people wee living in the 1920,s I asked what do you mean. He said they still think they can control the world. That the spirit that caused WWI and II was alive and well. I look to you to give me balance but your attitude only reinforces Joe statement.
]]>By: Mr.Xhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169563
Mr.XSat, 29 Jun 2013 21:52:57 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169563You have no clue about Poland, that much is for sure.The same goes for "the old soviet union", whatever that's supposed to be.
I bet you never left your own country.That's why your view of reality is so warped.Your comment could be seen as an insult, considering its stunning ignorance.
As far as your apologist stance towards your government is concerned, one might be inclined to ask on whose payroll you are.Oh, wait, you shouldn't tell.
" but it isn’t even close to a police state."
You must be kidding.You have no clue about Poland, that much is for sure.The same goes for “the old soviet union”, whatever that’s supposed to be.

I bet you never left your own country.That’s why your view of reality is so warped.Your comment could be seen as an insult, considering its stunning ignorance.

As far as your apologist stance towards your government is concerned, one might be inclined to ask on whose payroll you are.Oh, wait, you shouldn’t tell.

” but it isn’t even close to a police state.”
You must be kidding.

]]>By: Brihttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169559
BriSat, 29 Jun 2013 21:40:32 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169559I wonder if you realize how distorted you perspective is. In India, a country not noted for being particularly tyrannical, they have police officers with long canes that patrol public parks for overt expressions of affection. If you are making out or other forms of affection, they come up unannounced and smack you with the cane. That's not in a typical police state. It gets far worse. Saying that America is a police state is so exaggerated that it makes you seem like you don't know what the term means. In America I can go to the whitehouse and call the president the Antichrist. Then go home and sleep soundly.
You want an example of a police state in formation? The president of Poland and his top officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia. There is no official memorial allowed in Poland. The people tried to have their own memorial. The new government used root police to break it up. They are becoming a puppet satellite government of the old Soviet Union. That's not even a bad example. Look around the world. They are everywhere. America may have it's share of problems but it isn't even close to a police state.I wonder if you realize how distorted you perspective is. In India, a country not noted for being particularly tyrannical, they have police officers with long canes that patrol public parks for overt expressions of affection. If you are making out or other forms of affection, they come up unannounced and smack you with the cane. That’s not in a typical police state. It gets far worse. Saying that America is a police state is so exaggerated that it makes you seem like you don’t know what the term means. In America I can go to the whitehouse and call the president the Antichrist. Then go home and sleep soundly.

You want an example of a police state in formation? The president of Poland and his top officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia. There is no official memorial allowed in Poland. The people tried to have their own memorial. The new government used root police to break it up. They are becoming a puppet satellite government of the old Soviet Union. That’s not even a bad example. Look around the world. They are everywhere. America may have it’s share of problems but it isn’t even close to a police state.

]]>By: Brihttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169556
BriSat, 29 Jun 2013 21:19:35 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169556Personally I think that anyone who is in government should be held to a higher state of accountability.. If they betray the public trust their punishment should be greater. Particularly if they are in high potential for abuse of power positions. I have been arguing for years for badge cameras. They are entrusted with the publics welfare. The public has the right to scrutinize every aspect of their work to ensure that it's not abused.Personally I think that anyone who is in government should be held to a higher state of accountability.. If they betray the public trust their punishment should be greater. Particularly if they are in high potential for abuse of power positions. I have been arguing for years for badge cameras. They are entrusted with the publics welfare. The public has the right to scrutinize every aspect of their work to ensure that it’s not abused.
]]>By: xxxx4http://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-169251
xxxx4Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:18:36 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-169251You can't actually believe that courts are impartial and without being subject to influence?You can’t actually believe that courts are impartial and without being subject to influence?
]]>By: smb12321http://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-168378
smb12321Wed, 26 Jun 2013 10:33:10 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-168378Thank you. This simple fact is often overlooked yet it is patently clear that such folks have done this in the past and are doing it as we speak. What is so insidious is that many actually think their actions are for the best. How else to explain fervent support for societies and systems that are abject failures?Thank you. This simple fact is often overlooked yet it is patently clear that such folks have done this in the past and are doing it as we speak. What is so insidious is that many actually think their actions are for the best. How else to explain fervent support for societies and systems that are abject failures?
]]>By: smb12321http://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-168377
smb12321Wed, 26 Jun 2013 10:30:21 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-168377It can be gussied up with lots of mumbo jumbo psycho babble but the central point is clear. Humans possess both good and evil means and when those in charge decide something should be done "for our own good" they will defend their actions by appeals to patriotism, the supernatural, race, tribe, gender, ideology, etc We will always be at the mercy of those with a monopoly on power (the State) and can only trust that it does not assume that more data necessarily results in a better society - the real question.It can be gussied up with lots of mumbo jumbo psycho babble but the central point is clear. Humans possess both good and evil means and when those in charge decide something should be done “for our own good” they will defend their actions by appeals to patriotism, the supernatural, race, tribe, gender, ideology, etc We will always be at the mercy of those with a monopoly on power (the State) and can only trust that it does not assume that more data necessarily results in a better society – the real question.
]]>By: Rob Mackayhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-168220
Rob MackayTue, 25 Jun 2013 21:34:34 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-168220"Consider some future age in which the United States becomes dominated by a totalitarian dictator. Imagine secret police crashing through the doors of private homes in the dead of night; the arrest and torture of citizens as a purposeful government policy for the suppression of dissent; gulags to warehouse troublemakers; and even summary executions."
Consider that we are already seeing this reality in the world today, its not in some imagined future dictatorship, it is here now today. When DHS coordinates the assault of the OWS, when the IRS coordinates political targeting, when police in almost any state in the nation will kick in someones door in the middle of the night and kill them without repercussion we are living in a post liberty America.
Privacy is one thing you may negotiate but liberty is not negotiable and tyranny has already raised its ugly head in America - ostensibly the most powerful police state to have every existed.“Consider some future age in which the United States becomes dominated by a totalitarian dictator. Imagine secret police crashing through the doors of private homes in the dead of night; the arrest and torture of citizens as a purposeful government policy for the suppression of dissent; gulags to warehouse troublemakers; and even summary executions.”

Consider that we are already seeing this reality in the world today, its not in some imagined future dictatorship, it is here now today. When DHS coordinates the assault of the OWS, when the IRS coordinates political targeting, when police in almost any state in the nation will kick in someones door in the middle of the night and kill them without repercussion we are living in a post liberty America.

Privacy is one thing you may negotiate but liberty is not negotiable and tyranny has already raised its ugly head in America – ostensibly the most powerful police state to have every existed.

]]>By: Rob Mackayhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-168139
Rob MackayTue, 25 Jun 2013 15:27:05 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-168139I am personally fine with an alibi database so long as all public employees, politicians, lobbyists and government contractors have all of their personal activity on public display at all times. If you want to track my data then yours should be open for all to see before mine is without a warrant. This means I think all members of congress and their staffs agendas, activities, meetings and finance should be on public display on the internet for anyone to search at will.
If they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear right ?I am personally fine with an alibi database so long as all public employees, politicians, lobbyists and government contractors have all of their personal activity on public display at all times. If you want to track my data then yours should be open for all to see before mine is without a warrant. This means I think all members of congress and their staffs agendas, activities, meetings and finance should be on public display on the internet for anyone to search at will.

If they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear right ?

]]>By: victorhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-167390
victorMon, 24 Jun 2013 05:42:05 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-167390nice postnice post
]]>By: Tomhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-166507
TomFri, 21 Jun 2013 21:18:28 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-166507Could not "thoughts" and "mind" be encompassed by "person"?
Also, which God's given rights do you enshrine in a multi-theology society?
All, none, random shuffle, repeated cycle?
Isn't religion supposed to be separated from the state in the US?
Rights don't come from without, but from within us.
The idea that we need gods for moral guidance has been disproved.
Rights are rules we ourselves choose to enshrine in our society.
The clearer everyone is on that, the easier it will be to identify who is making those choices, and who those choices serve.Could not “thoughts” and “mind” be encompassed by “person”?

Also, which God’s given rights do you enshrine in a multi-theology society?
All, none, random shuffle, repeated cycle?

Isn’t religion supposed to be separated from the state in the US?

Rights don’t come from without, but from within us.
The idea that we need gods for moral guidance has been disproved.
Rights are rules we ourselves choose to enshrine in our society.

The clearer everyone is on that, the easier it will be to identify who is making those choices, and who those choices serve.

]]>By: johttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-166379
joFri, 21 Jun 2013 15:08:16 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-166379One things is clear - that governments always use whatever tools they have to hand. Think what will happen when the technology emerging is in the hands of the Stalins, McCarthys, Saddams, Blairs, Mugabes.... ?One things is clear – that governments always use whatever tools they have to hand. Think what will happen when the technology emerging is in the hands of the Stalins, McCarthys, Saddams, Blairs, Mugabes…. ?
]]>By: RHChttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165259
RHCTue, 18 Jun 2013 23:00:43 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165259Interesting speculations. I think there are so many possible outcomes from the kinds of technologies you describe, that in a way we are already at the Singularity, in the sense that it is next to impossible to do any kind of high confidence predicting or scenario planning. Personally I think true AI or AI augmented human minds will be on the scene as part of the mix you describe. Predicting with real nanotech is hard enough, throw in AI and anything anyone projects is sure to be wrong. But what fun is that!Interesting speculations. I think there are so many possible outcomes from the kinds of technologies you describe, that in a way we are already at the Singularity, in the sense that it is next to impossible to do any kind of high confidence predicting or scenario planning. Personally I think true AI or AI augmented human minds will be on the scene as part of the mix you describe. Predicting with real nanotech is hard enough, throw in AI and anything anyone projects is sure to be wrong. But what fun is that!
]]>By: Lancehttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165245
LanceTue, 18 Jun 2013 21:57:27 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165245Sorry, but this won't work and I'll tell you why. Given the corrupt nature of the spirit of carnal humanity, any system devised by carnal humanity to govern carnal humanity will be corrupt as well. Carnal human beings, or any artificial intelligence created by them to act as their "god", will decide what is allowed, and in this case, anything a carnal human being desires will be allowed. In effect, those who will not agree to the definitions of what is right and what is wrong based on the authority of carnal man, or mans carnal artificial "god", will be singled out because they do not agree with them. One can guess what might happen to them. Romans fed the true Christians to the lions in the past, so what might befall true Christians in the world run totally by carnal human beings under the control of a carnal artificial "godlike" intelligence, hmmm?Sorry, but this won’t work and I’ll tell you why. Given the corrupt nature of the spirit of carnal humanity, any system devised by carnal humanity to govern carnal humanity will be corrupt as well. Carnal human beings, or any artificial intelligence created by them to act as their “god”, will decide what is allowed, and in this case, anything a carnal human being desires will be allowed. In effect, those who will not agree to the definitions of what is right and what is wrong based on the authority of carnal man, or mans carnal artificial “god”, will be singled out because they do not agree with them. One can guess what might happen to them. Romans fed the true Christians to the lions in the past, so what might befall true Christians in the world run totally by carnal human beings under the control of a carnal artificial “godlike” intelligence, hmmm?
]]>By: Ancient onehttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165240
Ancient oneTue, 18 Jun 2013 21:32:12 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165240It's that word unreasonable again. That leaves a lot of wiggle room. Mr. Brin points out that technology is changing what is defined as unreasonable. Google glass may appear invasive and Borg like today. In time we will accept it as normal and so it may be defined as reasonable to be recorded in this manner. Everything is dependent on the way that we define the individual words. That is constantly changing.It’s that word unreasonable again. That leaves a lot of wiggle room. Mr. Brin points out that technology is changing what is defined as unreasonable. Google glass may appear invasive and Borg like today. In time we will accept it as normal and so it may be defined as reasonable to be recorded in this manner. Everything is dependent on the way that we define the individual words. That is constantly changing.
]]>By: David Brinhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165228
David BrinTue, 18 Jun 2013 20:43:43 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165228Fascinating musings, Robert. Almost science fictional, in the best sense! ;)
If I might offer a personal correction. The Transparent Society that I speak of in the book of the same name is not "privacy free." If it were, it would not be either free nor human.Indeed, some privacy (perhaps redefined and more narrow) will be a fundamental human desideratum. But how to save some in an era when at a pace faster than Moore’s law, cameras get cheaper, better, more mobile, more numerous and smaller each year. Your Google Glass “specs” may provoke strong reactions from folks today, when they resemble Borg implants. Tomorrow they’ll look like normal sunglasses. A few years later, they will vanish into contact lenses.
Simple. Reciprocality. If citizens are sovereign and tech empowered to detect peeping toms, then peeping toms will be deterred, exactly as they are in restaurants today. It is the only way privacy might be saved.
See http://www.scoop.it/t/the-transparent-society
Thrive all.
With cordial regards,
David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com
blog: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
twitter: http://twitter.com/DavidBrinFascinating musings, Robert. Almost science fictional, in the best sense! ;)

If I might offer a personal correction. The Transparent Society that I speak of in the book of the same name is not “privacy free.” If it were, it would not be either free nor human.Indeed, some privacy (perhaps redefined and more narrow) will be a fundamental human desideratum. But how to save some in an era when at a pace faster than Moore’s law, cameras get cheaper, better, more mobile, more numerous and smaller each year. Your Google Glass “specs” may provoke strong reactions from folks today, when they resemble Borg implants. Tomorrow they’ll look like normal sunglasses. A few years later, they will vanish into contact lenses.

Simple. Reciprocality. If citizens are sovereign and tech empowered to detect peeping toms, then peeping toms will be deterred, exactly as they are in restaurants today. It is the only way privacy might be saved.

]]>By: Spotted Marleyhttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165162
Spotted MarleyTue, 18 Jun 2013 15:43:37 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165162If you are appalled by PRISM even a little bit, just keep using Google and Facebook and Verizon and Apple and (etc,etc) while you display your outrage.If you are appalled by PRISM even a little bit, just keep using Google and Facebook and Verizon and Apple and (etc,etc) while you display your outrage.
]]>By: Eric Balingithttp://www.kurzweilai.net/what-price-freedom-2/comment-page-1#comment-165145
Eric BalingitTue, 18 Jun 2013 14:53:29 +0000http://www.kurzweilai.net/?p=197214#comment-165145Yeah, yeah!!! Prevent all murders except members of government!
You think the NSA heard that?
Maybe I should add more exclamation points !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On a serious note, really?
Let's just roll over and accept the selective murder of people. What ever happened to it being more fun to torture and let live? If someone comes into my country and into my house with the intent to wipe me off of the planet then I want to be sure that's what they really really want. How would I know that's what they really really want unless they took their time to sit down and thoroughly torture and get to know me?
Damn the power pigs, one and all.Yeah, yeah!!! Prevent all murders except members of government!

You think the NSA heard that?

Maybe I should add more exclamation points !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a serious note, really?

Let’s just roll over and accept the selective murder of people. What ever happened to it being more fun to torture and let live? If someone comes into my country and into my house with the intent to wipe me off of the planet then I want to be sure that’s what they really really want. How would I know that’s what they really really want unless they took their time to sit down and thoroughly torture and get to know me?